


Stage Left

by Sixthlight



Series: Mutants of the Opera [1]
Category: Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: 19th Century, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, Humor, M/M, Multi, Mystery, Operas, Romance, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-17
Updated: 2011-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-26 05:26:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 59,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixthlight/pseuds/Sixthlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Scottish soprano Moira MacTaggert is a rising star at the New York Metropolitan Opera, tutored by the mysterious Opera Ghost. At least, he would be mysterious...if her childhood friend Charles Xavier didn’t keep pestering her about the brilliant mutant mind he can <i>clearly</i> sense hiding in the opera house, and Moira was too stupid to tell the difference between an Angel of Music and someone hiding behind her mirror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stage Left

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a response to [this prompt](http://1stclass-kink.livejournal.com/8846.html?thread=20287374#t20287374), and is basically your straightforward mashup of the ALW musical version of The Phantom of the Opera and X-Men: First Class (insofar as anything about that combination is straightforward), spiked wherever I felt like it with allusions to and bits and pieces lifted from the many other versions of the Phantom canon, and finished with a heavy dose of Terry Pratchett’s _Maskerade_. It contains opera, Shaw, opera, silliness, opera, vague and Wikipedia-based nineteenth-century history, opera, murder, opera, the merciless use of logic, opera, sex, and opera. You have been warned.

**1.**

Moira meets Charles Xavier when she is ten years old and all alone. She has spent all her life until then in Edinburgh, with its narrow stone streets and bustling crowds; the fields of Essex seem wild in comparison, soft and green and foreign. Her father has taken up a position as a doctor in the nearest small town – it’s practically a village – but Moira is too old and too quick to be entertained by the village schoolmistress, who teaches nothing she does not know from her solitary studies in their tiny Edinburgh house. She is still a girl, though, not yet old enough for corsets and long skirts, so she can slip off to wander through the fields, peering curiously at the wildlife, and sing. Moira loves to sing more than anything; in the crowded city she could not very often, except when her father took up his violin and played for the two of them, but here, with only the crickets and birds to accompany her, she can raise her voice as she pleases. It almost makes up for all the mud. (It is an _English_ summer, after all, and it has rained the past three days straight.)

She is most of the way to the berry brambles by the stream, on the border of the manor’s lands – Moira doesn’t remember the local squire’s name, though she knows it sounded foreign – singing to herself and the skylarks, when she hears a voice in her head.

 _You sing so prettily!_

Moira breaks off, startled; there is no-one in sight.

“Oh, don’t stop,” says the same voice, aloud. It comes from above.

There is a boy sitting in the oak tree above her. Moira cranes her head to look at him. “Whatever are you doing up there?”

“Enjoying your song,” says the boy, and smiles. Moira is willing to be charmed. A little.

“You said that. That I was singing prettily. But not out loud. How did you do that?”

Panic crosses his face. “That – I – no, I said that out loud.”

“No, you _didn’t_ ,” Moira insists. She has a very good ear, everyone agrees, for music and voice. It didn’t sound like an out-loud voice at all.

“I,” says the boy. Chagrin crosses his face. “Did I mention I’m a bit stuck in this tree? I climbed up here to try and sketch this birdsnest, and I haven’t been able to get down. Then I dropped my sketchpad.”

It’s lying on the ground, just out of the mud, not very far from Moira; she picks it up. It’s filled with sketches of nature, birds and frogs and even insects, all labelled and drawn with exacting care.

“These are quite good,” she tells him. “You like nature.”

“I like the things that live in it,” the boy replies. “When I go up to Oxford, I’m going to read the natural sciences. Can I have my sketchpad back, at least?”

Moira snaps it shut, and considers. “Tell me how you spoke in my head and I’ll give it back. _And_ I’ll help you down.”

“That seems fair,” says the boy, after a second. Moira smiles up at him, despite herself, and goes to hoist herself up the tree.

*

The boy’s name is Charles Xavier, and he is the son of the local squire.

“He’s dead, though,” Charles explains. “So it was just me and Mother, but then Mother married Mr. Marko, and he brought his son Cain with him, and – well, it was healthier for me to spend time outdoors.” His smile is wan.

Charles can read her thoughts, he explains. Read them, and tell her things without speaking. Moira finds this inexpressibly fascinating. “How does it work? When did you start?”

“I always could. That I remember. It doesn’t bother you?”

Moira thinks about it, and decides it doesn’t, as long as Charles promises faithfully not to read her _private_ thoughts, the ones in the bottom of her mind. She can live with him hearing the ones that skim the surface. He shows her how to keep her mind still, so even the surface thoughts are hard to hear. He says he likes it better that way, that the babble of minds all hurly-burly makes him tired. Moira is glad it makes it easier for Charles, but glad she doesn’t have to mind what she thinks, too. Minding what she says is hard enough, when she gets her temper up. She’s slow to anger, usually, but it happens.

Charles is away at boarding school most of the year, but it’s summer, now, and he wants to be out of the house – away from his stepfather – as much as possible. The village doctor is just respectable enough a position for Charles to be able to visit them, so he does, all summer. Sometimes on the long summer evenings her father will play the violin for them, and tell them stories of the village _he_ grew up in, in the far north of Scotland, where the sun almost never sets in summer and never rises in winter. Other times it’s myths and legends, angels of music and demons of fire. They eat cheese and toast, and Charles questions her father about medicine and biology. He loves to hear Moira sing, too, as often as she wants to.

Charles leaves when summer ends, but he’ll be back, he promises, back soon enough.

*

Charles comes back the next summer, but not alone; there’s a blonde little girl with him. He introduces her as his sister, Raven. Moira doesn’t understand, but he promises in the silence of their heads to explain. Her father seems to believe Charles has always had a sister.

Once they’re alone, Charles turns to Raven. “Show her. Go on, it’s all right.”

Moira gasps as Raven shimmers and shifts; she’s still round-faced, but not blonde and pink-cheeked. She’s blue and shimmer-scaled, like the efts and newts down at the pond, red hair slicked back against her skull and large golden owl-eyes. She’s like nothing Moira has ever seen.

“Oh, that’s _amazing_ ,” Moira breathes.

“She can look like _anyone_ ,” Charles says proudly. Raven giggles, and shifts; suddenly Moira is facing herself.

“So she’s like you – she’s really your sister?” Moira can’t help asking.

“She is now,” Charles says firmly, putting an arm around her.

“My father thought she was here last summer, but I don’t remember -”

“Charles made everyone think I’d always been here,” Raven says, softly. Charles bites his lip.

“You – you changed Father’s mind?”

“I can’t let anyone find out,” Charles bursts out. “They won’t – they might hurt her. And she’s all alone and I _wanted_ a little sister or brother and please, Moira, you won’t tell, will you?”

“Will you let me choose that?” Moira’s voice is flat.

“ _Yes_. Please, Moira. Please.”

She’s angry at Charles, for her father, and he knows that – he knows she knows he knows that – but Raven’s anxious owl-eyes watch them both, and Charles is so very good at making her love the things he loves.

“Do you like cheese and toast?” Moira asks Raven.

Raven smiles, startlingly white.

*

They go on like that for three more golden summers, while Moira grows up into corsets and pinned hair and long skirts, and their rambles together become stolen time – though Raven makes an excellent excuse and chaperone, and besides Moira isn’t interested in boys like that, not yet – until the winter four years after Moira met Charles in an oak-tree, when her father sits her down and tells her they are moving to London. Moira bursts into tears.

There is nothing to be done, though – Father is getting older, and they have family in London, a cousin of her mother’s, her mother was London-born – so Moira packs her things with a heavy heart. She doesn’t have Charles’ address at boarding school, but she gives Raven a letter for him, with her apologies and promises of friendship and hopes they will meet again. Except she knows they won’t, because by the time they can she will still be the doctor’s daughter – and a singer, maybe, she’s been dreaming, it’s the one thing about London that wouldn’t be so terrible – and he will be gentry and looking for a wife, and it won’t be Moira. Not that she wants to be anyone’s wife quite yet, but Charles – well, Charles wouldn’t be _terrible_. And she’d have Raven for a sister, and she does like Raven, her quick wit and her fire, the foil to Moira’s thoughtful pace. It wouldn’t be so bad.

But it won’t be, so.

Charles writes back to her, in London, in a Christmas package that comes with a beautiful red silk scarf and a sketch of skylarks. And an address.

 _I don’t know if you mean to pursue your singing, beyond company_ , he writes, _but your voice deserves to be heard by everyone. I have heard this singing-master has an excellent reputation, and a soft spot for pupils of talent who might not pay as well as the daughters of the gentry. You should speak with him._

When Moira does – though she fears the whole enterprise will be beyond her means, anyway – she discovers Charles has already arranged to pay for her first lessons. She curses him for meddling, but takes the gift with joy. She’ll see Charles again, she resolves, and thank him in person. Soon. She will.

But it’s years before she does.

 **2.**

It has been too many years since Moira was in Edinburgh – her accent is faded almost to nothing, just a soft burr – for her to accurately recall much about it, but she’s certain New York outdoes it for winter cold. Or it feels that way, as she tucks her hands into her sleeves and ducks into the opera. Auditions are posted for today for the chorus; Moira has had enough experience by now to know her chances are slim, especially if she’s not willing to bed whoever is doing the choosing – and she’s not that desperate. Yet.

Charles’ gift let her learn to sing _properly_ , sing for the stage, but her father never wanted her on stage in London – not respectable enough, not the life he dreamed of for his only child – and as he grew sicker, Moira hadn’t had the heart to go against him. When he died, quietly, Moira sold everything up and bought a ticket to the United States. Overseas, she had felt, in a land of immigrants – she had distant cousins there, too – there would be no-one to disapprove.

But there would also be no contacts, and her singing-master’s letter counted for little in the theatres of New York. This is her last chance.

 _Well_ ,  Moira thinks, _there’s always Boston_. But her funds were growing dangerously low. There were her cousins – but she barely knew their names, and couldn’t stand to ask for charity. Not quite yet.

She stands in line with the other girls, watches the ballet corps going through rehearsal on the stage, hears others sing and be dismissed. None of them are as good as her, she’s sure of it. Moira hopes she isn’t given to false pride, but she knows she’s good. She _knows_ it.

The singing director is a large Russian with a menacing scar across his cheek, but he dismisses the girls kindly enough, if briskly. In one of the boxes above the stage, a blonde woman is leaning on the railing, eyes narrowed; she is perfectly coiffed and icily lovely. She makes Moira uneasy. Something about how she looks at people – it’s almost like the way Charles – but no. She’s never met anyone else like Charles and Raven, with their wondrous powers. Surely not.

Then she feels a touch of ice in her _mind_ , and thinks hastily of the pond by the Xavier estate, cool blue blankness. Charles taught her that. She never thought she’d _need_ it.

She doesn’t look at the blonde woman. She doesn’t dare.

Then it’s her turn, up on stage. The director, Mr. Azazel, makes her go through a few turns and leaps – the chorus is not the ballet, but they must be able to dance – then gruffly tells her to sing.

Her mind is still perfectly blank. There is nothing.

The blonde woman laughs. It breaks the silence, brings colour to Moira’s cheeks; haltingly, then with more confidence, she sings. The ballet, she notices at one point, has stopped. They must be taking a rest. Not her business; her business is singing, and she does, pouring out notes until -

“Stop,” Azazel tells her half-way through the tune. “Enough. You’ll do.”

“I – I’ll do?” Moira repeats in disbelief.

“Yes. Over there, sit. You’ll meet the rest of the chorus later. Next!”

Moira stumbles back to gather her things, sits, in a daze.

 _I’ll do. I’ll do. I_ did it.

*

She soon discovers it’s not _quite_  the achievement she thought. The chorus girls have tiny little rooms at the Opera itself, bunkbeds and rough wooden tables, to “keep them out of trouble”, she’s told. Moira doesn’t want any trouble. The pay is abysmal and they rehearse night and day, singing and dancing lessons when they’re not practising for performances. But she’s singing. She’s singing.

The icy blonde woman is Emma Frost, the opera’s diva; rumour says she’s the mistress of the opera house’s new owner, a Mr. Shaw. She has no understudy; she refuses one. Everyone goes in fear of her, even Janos, the Hungarian lead tenor, and especially the stagehands and chorus. The orchestra remains neutral, except for the short, mouthy blond who plays second violin and is happy to express his dislike of her aloud - but never where she can hear it. The lanky, dark-haired boy who has charge of the stage machinery – Hank, Moira thinks it is – is positively terrified.

Normally there would be an older chaperone for the chorus and ballet girls – part of the “keeping them out of trouble”, where trouble means men – but Moira is told that the last one was the ballet mistress, and she moved back home to France some months gone. There is a ballet master instead, and to shepherd the girls, Angel, the chorus lead. She’s dark and fiery and moves like she can fly, darting from room to room, hushing them to bed and snapping at the impudent, finding bandages for the ballet girls’ bleeding feet and comforting words for difficult days. She also warns them, strictly, not to gossip. But they do, terribly.

Moira shares her garret room with three other girls of the chorus and ballet. Ororo is a Negro, but not American-born – she came from Cairo, she tells Moira, _her_  family were never slaves. It’s important to her, here. Jean is redheaded and a little ethereal, and Branwen, the ballet girl, is dark and liltingly Welsh and, somehow, familiar. Moira can’t work out why.

She finds out on the third night, when Ororo is out shopping and Jean has popped into one of the other rooms. Branwen grins at her, and then her whole face reforms around that white grin, framed by midnight-blue and gold. It’s Raven. Raven.

“Weren’t expecting that, were you?” Raven says, in tones of some satisfaction.

Moira scrapes her jaw up off the floor. “Wasn’t expecting – you little _fiend_ , you’ve been waiting to do that!”

“ _Oh_ , yes.” Raven perches on her bed, crossing her legs gracefully. When Moira saw her last, she was twelve years old or thereabouts, skinny and underfed and perpetually nervous, the last fading only gradually as she became convinced her place as Charles’ sister was secure. Now she’s a woman grown and lovely with it, sleek and blue and utterly out of place in this poky little wooden room with its worn blankets and bunkbeds. Raven has always looked like she belongs on a stage, or maybe a jungle somewhere, with a host of other beautiful and alien creatures.

“What are you doing in New York?” Moira asks her eagerly. “Is – is Charles with you? I haven’t heard from him in – oh, years and years, I wondered what you two were doing. I thought you’d be out and engaged by now.”

Raven sighs. “That was exactly the problem.”

Moira frowns. “Whyever? I know you can’t go around looking like yourself, but you can be as pretty as you like, and I didn’t think money was a problem -”

“I didn’t want to _get_  married!” Raven exclaims. “I wanted to _do_  something, to dance, you know, I always liked dancing, but dancing isn’t _proper_ and Charles was so set on me coming out and being presented and all the rest of it and I would have gone _mad_ , Moira, stark raving mad. Charles can never understand why anyone wouldn’t want to be normal.” She rolls her eyes at the word. “So I, ah. I ran away from home.”

“I see.” Moira digests this. Raven – well, Raven always _was_  a little constrained by polite society, eager for any chance to shed her borrowed pink-and-white skin and run through the field by the pond in her own blue scales. Moira understood it. Being an opera singer is what she wants, what she hungers for, but it’s not very _proper_ , and even with Charles’ letter – the one she still has carefully pressed in her father’s old bible – she doesn’t think Charles would much approve of her doing what she’s doing, either. “But how did you get _here_ ?”

Raven’s story doesn’t take long to tell. Lady Xavier had died a year after Moira had gone to London, of drink, Raven says, which surprised Moira not at all, and Charles had somehow contrived to get rid of his stepfather and brother somewhere far from Britain – Raven didn’t say how, precisely, but Moira could guess.

Charles had gone up to Oxford, leaving Raven at a boarding school for young ladies, and come back last year speaking of bringing her out, now he’d finished his degree. So she could be married and settled before he went back to study for his doctorate, Raven had thought. She hadn’t waited to find out, tired of being a proper young lady; she’d sold some jewellery – it wasn’t as if she couldn’t look like she was wearing any she liked, she added, mimicking a diamond necklace for a flash – and taken ship to New York. Much like Moira had done.

Once here, she’d found her way to the opera house and won a position in the _corps de ballet_ _,_ grace and poise – and the ability to reform her foot so she could dance on toe-tip without battering her feet bloody – edging out her lack of formal training. And that was all.

“But why the opera house?” Moira asks. “I mean, why stay here? You could be a governess, or,  - well, work in a shop, I suppose, but I didn’t think you loved to dance _that_  much.”

“Well, there’s –“ Raven looks around, and lowers her voice. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this place is full of people like – people like me and Charles.”

Moira thinks carefully of the last few days, of Hank nearly swinging among the flies and ropes at some very odd angles, of Ororo’s uncanny ability to predict the weather, of Emma Frost’s brush against her mind. “It – I hadn’t, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“It’s because of the Opera Ghost,” Raven continues, still in a lowered voice.

“...Opera Ghost?” Moira wrinkles her nose. She loves her father’s stories, still, but an _opera ghost_ ?

“No-one’s warned you about the Opera Ghost?” Raven’s eyebrows shoot up. “But Angel should have – oh, let me tell you.”

The Opera Ghost has been here for a year or two, Raven says. No-one is quite sure whether he’s a ghost or a man; the more normal members of the chorus and ballet assert he’s a spirit, but the changelings, the ones like Raven, they think he’s one of them. Angel has practically said as much, though she won’t say much at all on the subject.

He can hear everything that’s said in the opera house, they say, and things move at his command; scenery shifts, chandeliers rattle, Raven even swears she saw the conductor’s baton, left lying on the conductor’s stand, rise and beat out a few bars. He leaves notes for the management on a regular basis, telling them who to promote and who to shift back, which members of the orchestra have been out of tune and which parts of productions he thinks are going poorly.

“That’s why Mr. Andre and Mr. Firmin sold up to Mr. Shaw,” Raven explains. “They couldn’t stand the notes. And they kept trying to _manage_  the place, like owning it meant they knew something about music, they were running it into the ground. At least Shaw has the sense to leave it to people who know what they’re doing, and only show up for opening nights and things.”

The Ghost also attends every production, sitting in box five, left empty at his instruction – even though no-one is ever seen there.

“They set guards, they searched it before and after – but there’s never anyone there.”

“Maybe he can become invisible,” Moira suggests. “That would explain things moving, and overhearing everything.”

“Not the scenery,” Raven objects. “It’s _heavy_ , they have to use sandbags and weights – poor Hank was beside himself when it nearly fell onto the ballet that time. Well, beside the ballet. Well, beside Sarah, and she’d been drinking that morning, she shouldn’t have been onstage at all except we were two short because it someone was sick _and_ it was one of Kitty’s Jewish holidays.”

“He hurts people?”

“Oh, no,” Raven assures her. “Well, not any of _us_ , you know.”

Apparently the girls of the chorus and ballet regard the Opera Ghost as something of a protector. Several over-attentive opera patrons have suffered mysterious injuries and ceased to visit the opera, delighting the subjects of their attention.

“There was this one, he just wouldn’t leave Alison alone – you know the type, and they think because we’re in the opera that we’re no better than we should be, as if we should be anything – and one of the gas-lights fell on him. _He_  didn’t come back.”

“So this ghost _does_  hurt people.”

“Only people who deserve it.” Raven is very firm on this point, stabbing a finger for emphasis. “Just listen to anything he writes about you, and don’t spread silly rumours.”

Moira blinks. “What, precisely, constitutes a _silly_  rumour?”

Raven shrugs. “Anything about pools of blood. Oh, or corpses. And poor Mr. Buquet hanging himself last year, his wife died the month before that and it was their anniversary. Besides, the Opera Ghost doesn’t _hang_  people. But mostly just listen to the notes, though you’re new, and in the chorus, I doubt he’ll have anything to say about you unless you’re _exceptionally_  bad, and -” Raven smiles at her, “- you’re not bad at all, are you? I remember Charles organising for those singing lessons for you. And we weren’t desperate these auditions, so Azazel wouldn’t have taken you if you were.”

“I’ll keep it all in mind.” Moira resolves to not do anything to draw the slightest bit of the Opera Ghost’s attention. And, now she thinks of it, to keep her father’s old Beaumont-Adams revolver – the one that doesn’t fit in her purse, more’s the pity – well-oiled.

They’re interrupted by the door opening; Raven slides smoothly back to her face as Branwen.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Ororo says briskly. “No-one else is around.” She glances sideways at Moira. “I didn’t realise – are you one of _us_ , then?”

“Oh, no,” Moira tells her. “I just sing. But I knew Ra- Branwen when she was small.”

“Moira’s all right.” Raven gets up and stretches. Ororo nods slowly. “You should show her your trick with Trinity Church sometime. I think she’d like it.”

“What sort of trick is that?” Moira can’t imagine what sort of trick you could do with a _church_ .

“Lightning,” Ororo wiggles her fingers.

Moira wonders precisely what sort of opera house she’s _at_ .

 **3.**

The opera is between productions at the moment, having just finished a run of _Faust_ (hardly Moira’s favourite, with all the moralising, so she’s not sorry) and still working up to _Dido and Aeneas_ , their next production. Moira is not familiar with it, English opera being so rarely performed, but apparently Emma likes it. Neither the conductor or the manager have the influence – or perhaps the backbone – to override what Emma Frost wants.

Most of the chorus girls spend their evenings out, when they have time off from rehearsal, seeing other shows with their young men or walking in the parks. Moira prefers to curl up with her libretto; there is a copy of the entire score she can borrow for the evening if she treats it carefully. Armando, Janos’ understudy, showed her where the scores are kept after he noticed her sneaking glances at parts left lying on chairs and pianos. Everyone likes Armando; he’s genial, though not close to anyone that Moira can see.

Raven drags her out on occasion, to poky little restaurants and smoky bars, to the blind fortune-teller down at the market who takes Moira’s hand and tells her what lovely brown eyes she has. Raven giggles at Moira’s expression.

“Irene sees the future,” she tells her. “I mean, _really_ sees the future.”

“Three seconds from now, you’re looking much less confused,” Irene says, in a throaty German accent.

“And three years from now?”

Irene takes in a sharp breath, drops her hand. “That depends.”

“That depends? That’s a fortune?” Moira tries to keep her voice light. It’s cold, October-brisk, and her coat is too thin. If it wasn’t for the fond way Raven gazes at Irene – a way Moira recognises, even if she didn’t think to see it directed as it is – she wouldn’t be staying a moment longer, but she can’t leave Raven to walk back alone. The girl isn’t stupid, but dusk is closing, and she might challenge herself into a problem Moira could have talked her out of.

“There’s too _much_.” Irene frowns. “You’ve got a lot of choices ahead of you.”

Well, that’s clear as mud, but Moira never had much time for fortunes anyway. Even true ones.

Then again, Raven directs them the long way back to the opera house – because Irene told her to, she says as they stroll along arm in arm – and the next day’s _World_ carries the story of a stabbing on the street they would have taken. Maybe Irene’s worth listening to, after all. Or maybe it’s coincidence.

She can’t dismiss as coincidence Ororo’s tricks with wind and lightning, which _are_ impressive, or Jean floating her powder box across the room to her, catching it lightly. Or the way the whole Opera House _rattles_ , sometimes, when rehearsal goes badly or someone strikes a particularly sour note. Not every time – but now and again – the seats creak, the hinges murmuring, and the grand chandelier high in the dome rustles, as if in an unseen breeze.

“The Ghost is watching,” the girls whisper, and Angel’s eyes are smooth and hard as river stones, but there’s no more evidence Moira can see than that.

Until the note.

*

They’re due to open in a little over a fortnight when the soprano singing Belinda – not anyone Moira knows well, she came to the company from Philadelphia and hasn’t spoken much to the chorus – falls sick. Emma insists on rehearsal all the same; for all her condescension and arrogance, the woman has a startling work ethic. (Moira would admire it more if large parts of rehearsals didn’t involve the chorus standing around and waiting for the leads to block things out.) But there’s no way their Belinda can sing today.

“Have Moira sing it,” Armando suggests. “She’s been studying the libretto, she can do it. That should get us through rehearsal.” He’s singing the Spirit _and_ the First Sailor; Moira has never heard someone with such a range. Armando _adapts_ , the other girls say, he could sing soprano if he had to. Moira wouldn’t believe it except she’s heard it.

“I,” Moira says. She can’t understand why he’s picking on her, but everyone’s looking at her, and she _has_ been reading the libretto and score, she likes to understand the whole work, how the chorus fits into it, daydream of the roles she might one day sing.

“ _Really_.” Emma’s tones could cut ice. “Oh, very well, if it means we can get on with this.” She shoots the beleaguered Belinda a look that could kill. “Get over here, girl.”

Moira doesn’t wait for the director’s nod; she scrambles forward.

She doesn’t think she makes a terrible mess of things, though she stumbles once or twice and is sure Emma – and Azazel, off to the side – catches every slip. But it’s an opportunity she can’t afford to waste.

“You did so well,” Jean tells her admiringly, when they’re done. “I think I’d have fainted.”

“Not bad,” Angel allows. “Emma _might_ let you live. If she doesn’t think you’ll be a problem for her.”

“How could I be a problem for _her_?” Moira is baffled.

Angel lowers her voice. “Honey, you think it’s chance the second sopranos around here can’t hold a candle to her? She likes being indispensable, does our white queen.”

“I’m not that good,” Moira argues. “Not nearly. Emma – she isn’t the _kindest_ person, but she can sing. Oh, she can sing. And she and Shaw – well.”

“That too,” Angel agrees. “And no, you’re not that good.”

“Yet,” Jean says thoughtfully.

It comes to a head when she’s called into the manager’s office the next morning. Emma is there, and Azazel, and the general manager, and Shaw. She barely feels the plush velvet of the chair she is invited to sit on, too busy with the sinking of her heart into her stomach.

“Miss MacTaggert,” Shaw says, smiling at her. It makes the hair on the back of Moira’s next stand up. “You seem to be the subject of some special attention.”

“There has been a _note_.” Emma holds it up by two fingers, as if it is tainted. “Do you know what this note says, MacTaggert?”

“Something – something about my singing?” Moira feels her heart sink. She didn’t think she’d been bad enough to attract the Opera Ghost’s attention. Will they turn her away? She has enough money to last a month or two, but without a reference –

“Our Ghost wants you to understudy for Belinda.” Azazel sounds – amused?

“That’s – extremely flattering,” Moira manages. “May – may I see the note?”

That appears to surprise them all, but Emma hands it over.

Moira opens it carefully. It’s sealed with red wax, a neat blob. No seal. The paper is good-quality, thick and creamy, folded crisply along the edges. The handwriting on it is thin and spare, no fine calligraphy, conveying its message with a minimum of effort and ink, though it’s not poorly formed. The message, too, is brief. It addresses itself to the general manger, rather than the owners.

 _Mr. Stanton,_

 _The rehearsals for Dido and Aeneas appear to be proceeding unusually well, although the ballet still lacks coordination. They should rehearse longer and gossip less. However, you appear to be lacking in understudies for your main roles. After her performance at rehearsal today, Moira MacTaggert has proven herself an adequate understudy for the role of Belinda. I expect to see her understudying this role from hereon in. No-one else merits further promotion; you should seek further afield. The loss of your lead, in particular, would be a catastrophe._

 _Yours sincerely,_

 _O.G._

“I see.” Moira unclenches her fingers, smoothes the fine paper, and re-folds the note. “That – seems very high praise, from what I am given to understand of the Ghost’s criticism.”

“Merited praise, would you say?” Shaw’s voice is smooth, like quicksand.

“I’m not bad,” Moira says firmly. “I know that, and I won’t pretend otherwise. But I don’t have the judgement yet to make this sort of decision. Does the Ghost?”

“His judgement is excellent,” Azazel says, almost idly.

“If you say so.” Moira laces her hands in her lap, and waits. There’s that touch against her mind, again, ice-cold. Emma? Looking for truth.

“I just don’t know why you do what this wretched phantom wants,” Emma bursts out, standing to pace. “No face, just these notes – anyone could be leaving them! We even give him _money_ –“

“He is, usually, quite right,” Mr. Stanton admits. “If it wasn’t for – in all honesty, the man is quite helpful.”

“If he is a man,” Moira can’t help adding, widening her eyes a little. There’s no need to seem _too_ intelligent, and no-one thinks chorus girls have a brain in their head anyway.

 _Besides. It_ could _be a woman. Or – is someone like Raven really_ human _, the way the rest of us are?_

“Is it losing the opera money?” Shaw asks, checking his watch.

“No-o,” Stanton says slowly, “well, there’s never enough money, but -”

“Are you unhappy with my patronage, Mr. Stanton?”

Stanton mutters a demurral. Shaw grins, suddenly, almost manic.

“Then as long as Emma as happy, I really don’t care. Give this girl the role, do as you please. I’m not here to tell you how to put on opera. I just don’t want there to be any _trouble_. There won’t be any trouble, will there, gentlemen?”

There won’t be, he is assured. Azazel sounds lazily confident. Stanton – does not.

Moira makes her escape as quickly as she can. Shaw might not want trouble, but she can sense it when it’s coming her way.

*

The promotion to understudy gives her a few benefits; her own dressing-room, tiny as it is, the one luxury being the mirror that covers the entire rear wall (which just shows how _small_ the room is.) Moira takes to reading in there by gaslight, doing her vocal exercises; now she’s not lost in the chorus, she can’t afford a slip. Or a singing-master, come to that, and she needs one. She will have to see what she’s put aside, ask who other singers go to. There must be someone she can afford; none of the singers have money unless they’re being paid for by some wealthy man who likes the excitement of a girl in the opera. No-one who charged too much would have any business.

She’s singing softly to herself one evening, after rehearsal – the production is only a few days away, now – when a voice speaks to her from nowhere. It is _speaking_ , she is quite sure. She knows the sound – the non-sound – of someone speaking mind-to-mind. Jean can, now and again, though uncertainly. And Charles did, all the time, when they were young.

She wonders where Charles is, whether he knows Raven is safe. Whether he ever thinks of her.

“Moira MacTaggert,” comes the voice, as if from every cranny of the room. It’s almost unaccented, maybe Continental; there’s a thrumming purr to it. It’s a singer’s voice, Moira is sure.

“Who’s that?” she says sharply, dropping the hairbrush she’d been running through her hair onto the rug. It lands with a dull _thud_.

“Think of me as the Angel of Music,” says the voice. It doesn’t _sound_ particularly angelic, however beautiful. Moira remembers her father’s stories, and wonders why – oh, of course, she sings that song to herself every now and again, doesn’t she? The voice must have heard it. The Ghost.

“I don’t think so.” She leans thoughtfully on her dressing table, finger tapping her cheek. “You’re the Opera Ghost, aren’t you? Though no-one ever mentioned a voice. One might think you were functionally mute, if eloquent with a pen.”

There’s a moment of silence. Moira almost fancies she can hear a grinding of teeth. “You may call me that, if it pleases you.”

“It _does_ please me. So. Mr. Ghost. What did you wish to speak of this evening?”

“How are you finding your new role?”

“Hard work,” Moira admits readily. Her feet are sore, her throat not quite, and even the soft fabric of her robe feels overstimulating after scratchy costume fittings. “But rewarding. I must thank you for the recommendation. It was very kind.”

“It was necessary.” The voice sounds – miffed. “You cannot perfect an opera with _kindness_.”

“I suppose not, although surely it helps? Armando was kind, when he suggested I sing the part. And else you’d never have noticed me, in the chorus.”

“I noticed you weeks ago, Moira. But I hadn’t had the chance to evaluate your voice properly before then.”

“Well, then. Did you come calling just to commend me, or did you have another purpose?”

Moira stands, paces the room end to end. She’s made it just to the door when the voice speaks again. “You are in need of lessons.”

“I know. They’re not cheap. I don’t suppose you could recommend anyone?”

“I will teach you.” The Ghost sounds quite determined on that point.

Foiled, Moira sits herself down on her stool; no matter where she stands, the voice sounds as if it comes from everywhere and nowhere. No obvious vents. Where, then?

“You don’t look very pleased,” the Ghost observes.

Moira, very particularly, _doesn’t_ look at the mirror. Instead, she leans down and picks up her hairbrush. “It’s a – not a kind offer, you say. What are the terms? What would be your payment?”

Convenient, she supposes, to have a teacher _in_ the Opera House. _He is usually right_ , Stanton said. _His judgement is excellent_ , said Azazel. Did excellent judgement make a teacher of music? It could. She’d resolved not to attract his attention, but that was a lost cause. And – there’s always the pistol. If necessary.

She remembers the chandelier’s sway, though, and is not so sure.

“Only these terms,” says the Ghost. “Do as I say. Give yourself to the music. Nothing else. You are good, now. I can make you _great_.”

“Better than Miss Frost?” Moira brushes her hair, tries to sound amused.

“Yes.”

And – it’s what she wants, isn’t it? More than anything. To be better than good at this, to be _great_.

“That’s all?”

“That is all. They are very reasonable terms, I think.”

“Quite.” It doesn’t need much thought. A voice is little danger. “Then I accept. You keep your word and I’ll keep mine.”

 _Those terms, and no others. Anything...else...is not in the bargain._

“When do we start?” She puts down the hairbrush.

“Now. If you aren’t too tired.”

“That’s kind,” she says dryly. “Not too tired, I think. I want to see what you have for me.”

“Then we will begin.”

 **4.**

 She can’t escape the other girls’ scrutiny; Raven notices immediately that she’s spending more time in her dressing room than in their dormitory.

“I can’t see why you’d want to,” she says, frowning around at the faded green wallpaper, the brown rug that’s clearly been through every other room before this, faint stains of dropped greasepaint and powder scattered across its surface, the battered furnishings and the flickering gaslight. “Much more comfortable curling up on a bed. This is barely better than _our_ dressing room, and you have to wait ‘till the dresser’s done with everyone else – oh, well, at least the mirror’s nice.” Raven strolls over to it, flickers and shifts; she’s her own blue self, then Moira, then Alex the second violin, then Emma. Raven-Emma makes a moue of distaste at her own face in the mirror, then she’s Raven-Branwen again, slender and dark and safe, not recognisable as Charles Xavier’s runaway sister, let alone her true, stranger self.

“The mirror is very helpful,” Moira agrees. Though protective of its secrets; she hasn’t liked to poke at it too often, imagining that anyone who has gone to as much effort as the Ghost has to hide himself must have reasons for it, but she’s had a look now and again when there’s been a rehearsal she isn’t required to be at and it seems likely the Ghost will be observing it. It remains, stubbornly, a mirror.

Maybe he _can_ make himself invisible. Somehow that’s much more chilling.

“You always did like the quiet, I suppose,” Raven muses, turning away from the mirror. “Though – would you mind if I came in here and practiced, now and again? There’s no full-length mirror anywhere else that’s safe, and I have a couple of people I need to work on.”

“I never knew you needed to practice your – impressions.” It always seemed to come to Raven as natural as breathing.

“We all have to practice.” Raven perches on the room’s other stool. The only other piece of furniture is a small table that might be mahogany under all the scuffs, presumably for the flowers Moira will be given by awed admirers. She’s a little short on those right now, though. “I can’t just put on someone’s face. It’s about – it’s about their expressions, their mannerisms. It’s _acting_. Just with very good costumes.”

“I never thought of it that way. Do you need a teacher, then?”

Raven makes a frustrated hissing noise. “I _had_ a teacher. Or at least someone to practice with. Before Charles got all – _conventional_.”

“Did you – do you write to him?”

“Once or twice. When people go down to Philadelphia, you know, so the letters aren’t postmarked from here. But – not often.”

“He’s probably worried about you, you know.”

Raven sighs. “I know. I just need – time. Or he’ll come along and be all _reasonable_ and the next thing you know I’ll be marrying one of his Oxford friends and then I’ll stab myself. Or him. More likely him.”

“Better him.” Moira chuckles. “All right, then. Can I help? With the practicing?”

“Not really.” Raven gets a thoughtful look in her eye. “On the other hand, Sean...”

“Sean?” Moira asks blankly.

“The Irish stagehand, who does the prompting sometimes? Oh, come along, you should meet him.”

Which is how Moira finds herself, along with Hank and Armando and Jean, giving Sean thumbs up or down as he tries to break glasses without breaking their eardrums.

“I can’t tell myself if it’s too loud, y’see, so I need you to listen and say yes or no,” he explains cheerfully.

Hank pulls the cotton out of his ears. It’s a necessary precaution. “Well, you’re getting better. Although I don’t know how I’m going to explain that.” He points at a fine spiderwebbing crack that has made its way up one of the gaslights. Compared to Sean’s previous efforts, it’s quite minimal.

“The Ghost,” Jean suggests. “He gets blamed for everything else.”

The dull metal tray Sean’s now-shattered glasses are sitting on gives an ominous rattle.

“Or maybe not,” Armando says, raising his voice pointedly.

It is, Moira realises abruptly, time for her lesson. “I – I’m terribly sorry, Sean, I have to go now.” She leaves before he can say anything. She hasn’t yet tested the Ghost’s opinions on punctuality, but she doesn’t particularly care to. Her steps pick up.

She darts into her dressing room at as much of a run as her dress allows her, shutting the door with very nearly a slam. There is, of course, nothing to see; her room remains untouched.

“Punctuality, Miss MacTaggert,” comes the Ghost’s smooth-gravel voice, “is-“

“Politeness, princes, I know. We were helping Sean work out how not to damage people’s eardrums. I forgot the time, I’m sorry.”

“We agreed. _Nothing_ is more important than this.”

“To me? No. And as I said, sir, I am sorry. Do you require a more fulsome apology?”

 _Though if someone was dying on the street, would he sxpect me – probably. The man seems terribly...focused._

Moira understands it, she does, she puts up with cold and terrible pay and long hours and Azazel scowling at her on a regular basis just for the chance to sing. But she’s not an _automaton_.

“No.” The Ghost sounds very dry. Has she upset him? “Shall we begin?”

It’s an exhausting lesson today, for some reason. Moira can’t hit the notes first time, no matter how she tries, can’t sustain them; everything peters out into thin nothingness. It’s almost on the edge of a complete disaster.

“That was terrible,” she says at length, when the Ghost declares the lesson done for the evening. “I feel like I’m fifteen and standing in front of M’sieur Alain all over again, trying to prove I’m not just another flighty girl who fancies she can sing.”

“Not quite that bad, perhaps.” Moira fancies she can hear the Ghost smile. “The opera opens in two days.”

“Does it? I hadn’t noticed.” Moira _tries_ not to let too much bite into her voice, but it’s probably a failure.

“We have, perhaps, been pushing too hard. You should rest. No singing, apart from the dress rehearsal.”

“That’s – kind of you.”

“Don’t _mock_ me, girl,” growls the Ghost, and Moira laughs, full and rich.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. And now good-night, I think.”

“Good-night,” says the Ghost, and maybe it’s only Moira’s imagination but there’s a touch of affection there.

*

She may be officially understudying, but they run for two weeks before Moira has to go on in her role; it’s only a Thursday night, not nearly the height of the week, but Raven and Ororo have to talk her out of bed that morning, nerves getting the better of her.

“Can I just sit here a little longer?” she protests weakly.

“No,” the other two chorus in united determination.

The rest of the day passes in a sort of queasy blur, and it’s not until she’s garbed in flowing Classical robes and standing on the stage, looking at Emma in her costume as the Carthaginian Queen, that something approaching calm comes over her.

“Shake the cloud from off your brow,” she sings, and it’s like the opening is written for her nerves; “Fortune smiles, and so should you.”

“Ah! Belinda,” comes Emma’s throaty soprano, and from thereon in it’s just the music, and nothing but.

You can’t see the boxes from the stage, of course, but Moira still can’t help glancing towards box five. It was left empty, as ever, reserved for the Ghost. Is he watching from there?

She’ll find out, she supposes, after the show.

After the last encore has come and gone and the curtains have come down, Moira makes her way slowly back to her dressing room, unsure if she wants to sleep for a week or stay up all night dancing. The rush that sustained her through the performance is ebbing, leaving a bemused sort of glow.

The corridors backstage are crowded, as they always are, with performers and hangers-on, especially the men – young and not-so-young – who hang around the chorus and ballet, not to mention the lead singers. Moira spots Armando, still in his sailor’s garb, talking with Alex-the-second-violin; he gives her a cheery grin.

“You did well tonight, you know that?”

“I – yes,” Moira says, because all in all, she’s quite sure she did. “But right now I don’t think I want anything more than to get back to my dressing room and get out of this costume.” She isn’t sure what the costumers made her “Carthaginian robes” out of, but it feels like upholstery fabric.

Armando shoots a glance at Alex, and says “Why don’t we walk you there?” It’s a touch too bright. Alex shrugs.

“As you wish,” Moira accedes, because Armando clearly has a reason.

That reason becomes quite evident the moment her dressing room door comes in view; there are a great number, or what seems to Moira’s eyes a great number, of young men hanging outside it just a _touch_ too casually. She hopes her feelings aren’t evident on her face. It would disappoint them so.

One brushes past her as she approaches, clearly on his way to bother some other singer; she wouldn’t have paid it any attention, except that he turns his face away from her quickly, as if not wanting to be seen. She can’t fathom why; he’s not that remarkable, tall, with a touch of red to his hair, and not unattractive, but no-one she knows.

Armando and Alex shepherd her through the crowd skilfully, depositing her right at her door. Her dresser is already there, opening it; she thanks them quickly and darts in, avoiding everyone’s eyes. They’re so...hopeful.

“This is your first night out of the chorus, isn’t it, miss?” her dresser observes.

Moira would nod but she’s too busy gaping at the _flowers_. There are flowers. There are _more than one bunch of flowers_.

“Ah. Yes,” she says eventually. “Do you suppose, once we’re done, you could find Ororo or Jean for me? And – I don’t know – some vases? I guess it wouldn’t do to let all of these go to waste.”

Raven is likely being bought a drink by one of the disappointed young men. She does enjoy being bought drinks by nice young men. Moira it supposes it helps when you can effectively vanish – or kick them in the face – if they assume that the drink comes with anything else. Raven has eyes for plenty of people who aren’t Irene, but her heart – and body – are Irene’s sole possession.

“Of course, miss,” the dresser assures her, and Moira relaxes a fraction.

*

She’s waiting for one of the other girls, browsing through the flowers. There aren’t that many, truth be told – a bouquet from Azazel, which is polite, and from the chorus, which is kind, and two or three from various names she’s never heard and doesn’t intend to remember; she pressed one of those on her dresser. Roses seem to be the order of the day, white and pink and red, but there’s one bunch of Japanese camellias that doesn’t have a card, of any sort. Moira kneels to check the floor; nothing. How odd.

“Do you like them?” asks the Ghost.

Moira prides herself on not jumping. “Some people might think it was rather impolite to watch a lady without saying anything.”

“Some people might think it was rather odd to take singing lessons from a mysterious voice.”

“Perhaps you have a point,” Moira says, dryly, but really. She gets _dressed_ in this room. She’s going to have to do something about a screen, just to make a point. “I do like them, yes, thank you. I hadn’t expected quite this – profusion.”

“You sang beautifully, and you looked beautiful. That will attract attention.”

“For the latter virtue, not the former, I’m sure. None of the men who hang around our dressing rooms strike me as particular lovers of music.”

“I’d hope you’d realise that.”

Moira laughs. “You can relax, if you were worried about my seduction away from opera by some dashing young man. I’m practically on the shelf, in that regard, but I might have thirty or forty years of singing. It’s much more attractive.”

“And you did promise,” the Ghost reminds her silkily. “Only music.”

“Only music,” Moira agrees.

 _I can’t really see anyone getting in the way of that. Although I do wonder – from time to time – oh, be sensible, girl, the man’s probably fifty if he’s a day or looking like who knows what, hiding away as he does._

There’s a knock on the door.

“Good night, Moira,” says the Ghost, and Moira supposes he is gone, although of course it’s hard to tell.

 _Really. I must see about that screen_.

To her surprise, it’s Raven. “Were you talking to someone?”

“Oh, just the Ghost,” Moira says airily; it should be laughed off, but Raven gives her an oddly sharp look. So much for that.

“Hmph. You know, I’ve thought I heard you talking to yourself in here before.”

“I must have been practicing.” Moira changes the subject. “Look at all these flowers! I don’t know what I’ll do with half of them, or who they’re from. Thank you all for the white roses, by the way, they’re lovely. And I must remember to thank Azazel. Why are you here, anyway? I rather expected you to have a glass of champagne in your hand and a man on each elbow by now.”

“You’re blathering,” Raven tells her, perching on the other stool. “I’m here because I don’t go out tearing up the town after _every_ show, you exaggerate _dreadfully_ , and don’t bother thanking Azazel, he sends flowers to everyone on their opening night, even the men, and hardly because he’s inclined that way, he’s a _dreadful_ flirt when he’s not being professional, I should know.”

“Inclined that way?” Moira’s _fairly_ sure she knows what Raven means, but –

“ _You_ know. Like Armando and Alex. Or -”

“You and Irene. I know.” Raven looks down; Moira doesn’t know whether to comfort her or – she’s never been terribly good at comforting people. “Is Irene well, may I ask? It’s been a while since I’ve seen her around.”

“She’s left the city, for a little while.” Raven’s expressions are hard to read sometimes, but Moira thinks this one is “relieved”, mixed with “irked”. “She says – well, what she _says_ is that English is an appalling language to try and explain the future in, but it’s something like a lot of things are going to happen very soon and the future’s all – all _soft_ , she called it, changeable, and it gives her terrible headaches. She’s going somewhere where people aren’t so unpredictable for a little while. I wish I could have gone with her, but – not now, I couldn’t.”

“That’s a pity. I wanted to ask her if she’d ever seen the Ghost, in her futures.”

“Seen the Ghost?” Raven wrinkles her nose. “I don’t think so. But would she know? Everyone says he wears a mask. Or that he’s a bodiless spirit. But I’m pretty sure Angel didn’t say we were _wrong_ about the mask, and she knows...something.”

“A mask.” Moira muses on that. “I wonder why?”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want to be seen.”

“Maybe he’s like you, some new colour. Or like Hank, with his hair coming in blue. He’s terribly upset about that.”

“Maybe he was horribly scarred as a child, and hides away in the Opera House because the world can’t bear his ugliness.” Raven is grinning, now, enjoying the game.

“Maybe he just has....a really large mole.” Moira is, too. It’s...relaxing, somehow, to tease about this and get away with it.

“A really large mole?” Raven widens her eyes comically.

“Yes. An _appalling_ one.” Moira nods.

They both break into laughter.

“You don’t think he’s a spirit, though,” Raven says, when they can look at each other without giggling again.

Moira thinks about the flowers. And the mirror, which sometimes moves, very slightly, going by the  scuffmarks she has finally spotted on the floor in the right light. And Hank, and Raven, and Ororo, and everyone else at the opera who’s just a little – different.

“Here, Raven – which do _you_ <.i> think is more likely? A man or a spirit?”

Raven must be thinking the same things. “Oh, clearly a ghost. Opera is all about vengeance and melodrama and dying for half an act. _Someone_ must have died here, apart from poor Mr. Buquet.”

“Then let’s hope they were the last one.” Moira yawns. “Goodness.”

“C’mon. Let’s get you to bed.” Raven gives her a hand off her stool.

“But the drinking. And the men on your elbow.”

“They’ll keep. Also, we need to take _you_ out. Your elbows have been rather man-free, since you got here. You’re all work, work, work.”

“I like my work,” Moira protests. “And I – I promised to dedicate myself to it.”

“Promised who?” Raven gives her another of those sharp looks.

“Oh. Myself. You know. When I auditioned for the chorus.”

She has to stop talking like this to Raven. One of these days she’s going to talk herself into a hole she _can’t_ get out of.

 **5.**

The production runs another few  weeks before they break for Christmas. Emma and Janos have a carol concert to perform in, but the rest of them get two weeks of unprecedented freedom (except for dancing lessons twice a week, and singing practice three, and Moira’s own private lessons, but – freedom, or near enough.)

Moira sings the role of Belinda four times before they close, and each time the number of admirers grows a little. She learns to duck past them with a polite smile. The flowers continue, as well; Moira gives them away by the armful, having more than enough to decorate her dressing room _and_ the dormitory she continues to share with the other girls. She never gives away the Ghost’s, though. They always seem to last the longest, bound with clever twists of brass that Moira cannot find the seams on, no matter how she looks. Another mystery for the list.

A few days after the New Year, it is announced that they will return with a fete. Emma is to sing the centrepiece songs, of course, but the height of the evening is to be a ballad Moira finds sentimental at best and mawkish at worst – she’s surprised Emma can voice it without gagging. The woman keeps any true emotion at a cautious distance, at least in public.

She only knows this, though, because Azazel hands her the score after rehearsal one day.

“For the fete,” he tells her. “Your new teacher – you must introduce me to him, some day, I have not had the pleasure – will need to work you hard on this.”

“But I have all my music for the fete, my only solo is the duet with Armando -”

“We have no understudy,” Azazel reminds her gently. “I have – a feeling about this, shall we say? Study the music, Miss MacTaggert.”

Moira thumbs through Emma’s songs, Emma’s scores, and wonders, not for the first time, what secrets Azazel is hiding. Sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, he looks quite different, but –

\- she has enough mysteries, for now.

*

They’re at the dress rehearsal for the fete when disaster strikes. Emma is half-way through the ballad – all ice, when it calls for sweetness, all distance, when it calls for sentiment, but she can’t be faulted for technical perfection – when a sandbag falls so close to her that it spills a little sand upon her shoe. Emma lets out an outright shriek. Everyone on stage jumps.

“What are you idiots _doing_ up there!” Emma spits up into the flies. It’s not a question so much as a demand.

“Sorry, sorry!” Hank calls. “Let me just – I’ll just check – I have no idea how -”

Moira hasn’t actually _seen_ Hank for weeks. Raven says his blue hair problem has become more of a blue fur problem; he’s dealt with it by retreating to the shadows and mumbling at people from under trapdoors and down from the flies. Moira is sure someone needs to talk to him, but has no idea what anyone might _say_.

Emma folds her arms and scowls.

“Shall we take it from the top?” suggests Azazel.

Emma isn’t two bars in when another sandbag falls. And another. It’s like a heavy, deadly rain. But not one, Moira can’t help noticing, touches a man or woman on the stage – or even comes as close as the first did to Emma.

Emma’s rage knows no bounds. She fumes against Azazel, against the chorus, against the orchestra, against the Ghost.

“Don’t say that too loudly,” Angel warns, her eyes alight, but Emma pays her no heed.

“I would rather dine with dogs than sing here tonight!” she proclaims, and storms off the stage.

They stand there, silent.

 _If she could bring that passion to her song, she’d be twice what she is_ , Moira can’t help musing.

“Miss MacTaggert,” Azazel says, after what seems like an age. “You have studied this song?”

“Yes, sir,” Moira whispers. Around them, the sandbags lift, as Hank and the other stagehands find their loosened ropes and hauls them up.

“Then let us begin from the top,” he says crisply.

Moira opens her mouth, then shuts it. Every eye is on her.

She takes Emma’s place, and the orchestra begins again.

*

Angel hustles her away, when rehearsal is over.

“What’s happening to you, Moira?”

Moira stares down at her and gropes for words. They say Angel knows more about the Ghost than anyone else. They say she’s seen him.

They say a lot of things, here.

“It’s the Ghost, isn’t it?” Angel continues, unabashed. “Has he been talking to you?”

“I didn’t know he _talked_ to anyone, apart from the infamous notes.”

Angel rolls her eyes. She has a rather spectacular way of doing it. “Honey, he talks, same as any man. I know that better than anyone else here. So tell me.”

“He’s been teaching me,” Moira admits.

Angel bites her lip. “You – I don’t know how to ask this. You know a few of us here are – different.”

“I share a room with Jean and Ororo and Branwen. And I’ve seen Hank’s – little problem, lately.”

“His big blue furry problem, you mean? Hard to miss. But I’ve never heard – what’s your trick?”

“I sing,” Moira says simply.

“Like Sean does stuff with his voice, or like Ali makes her illusions, or -”

“None of that.” Moira feels like there’s a conversation here she’s missing. “Just singing. Opera. Normal opera singing.”

“Opera is not _normal_ ,” Angel says with a great deal of feeling, “but I take your meaning.” Her eyes narrow. “That’s – interesting?”

“ _Should_ I?”

Angel chews her lip for a minute more, looks over her shoulder, looks over the other, and finally says “He usually doesn’t take to anyone who’s – normal. Not that I’ve seen him take to _anyone_ before enough to teach them, but even so.”

“He comments on the singers all the time.”

“True. And come to think of it, I tell a lie – there was that Swedish soprano, he liked her voice all right, but she was about as smart as an over-excited puppy and then it turned out she was married to some French nobleman and he showed up to take her home, so I don’t think he ever got to talking to her.”

“I promise I haven’t made the acquaintance of any Frenchmen, noble or not,” Moira assures Angel, and is relieved to see a twinkle in Angel’s eye.

“That should be all right, then. Just – you know you can talk to me if you need to, right, honey?”

“I know.”

But Moira knows she can’t, not even to Angel. This thing with the Ghost, with the teaching – it’s gone beyond that. Angel is a near-stranger, and she can’t even speak of it to Raven.

It should frighten her a great deal more than it does.

“Can I ask,” she says instead, “what _your_ – trick – is?”

“I spit acid.” Angel grins a little at the face Moira knows she makes. “And – this.”

She peels back the shoulder of her robe. Moira had noticed the odd tattoos, much more delicate than those of the sailors Moira’s seen, but she hadn’t –

Angel unfurls one wing. It glimmers in the low light of the corridor, iridescent and perfect.

“Well,” Moira manages after a moment, “I can think of a number of costuming difficulties that must solve admirably.”

Angel laughs, tucking it away. “Not compared to the ones it causes.”

“But they’re _lovely_ ,” Moira can’t help adding.

A curious smile touches Angel’s lips. “Well, thank you. Now come along. We need to get you all dressed up for this evening.”

“But I don’t _have_ a proper dress for this evening!” Moira realises with sudden horror. Nothing fit for the centrepiece ballad. “Or any jewellery, or -”

“Honey, that’s why they call it a costume department.”

*

They fit her out in one of the dresses from _Faust_ , a few months back – luckily she and Emma are a similar size, so very little fitting is required. The wide, scooping neckline demands a necklace, though, and none of the costume jewellery is right.

“We’ll keep looking, you need to get ready,” Raven instructs her, shooing her off. “We’re all dressed. Go, go.”

When she gets to her dressing room, though, there’s something laid out on the table; a necklace. Moira has never seen anything like it. There’s not a jewel to be seen, paste or glass or true, just intricate whorls of silver, almost like some Celtic design. Her dresser makes approving noises over it.

“Lucky they dug up something like this, isn’t it? Have you ever seen anything like it?”

“I haven’t, no.”

Moira thinks she knows where it comes from, though, and it’s not the costume jewellery box.

There’s a prickle on the back of her neck, as if someone is watching. She holds still while her dresser does her hair, and doesn’t look at the mirror.

Ten minutes before curtain, Raven barges into her dressing room, all afire about something.

“Moira! We need to talk! Something’s _happened -_ ”

“There’s no _time_ , Raven, we have to be onstage,” Moira interrupts her. “It isn’t life or death, is it? Then it can wait until afterwards.”

“No, Moira, you won’t _believe_ what Angel told me -”

Moira makes a snap decision. “Yes, it’s the Opera Ghost that’s been teaching me. I meant it, the other day. But we can talk about it later, Raven, we have to -”

That shuts Raven up; she gapes, her pale lie of a face going paler. “You _what_?”

“Isn’t that what this was about?”

Raven laughs, a little frantically, but then Azazel looms in the doorway, looking _extremely_ displeased, and there is nothing for it but to go to their places.

Not even a whisper from the Ghost, she hasn’t been alone a moment today. Moira is certain, though, that he planned this. How he could know Emma would refuse to perform, though –

 _A reader of minds, like Charles? With Jean’s power to move things? That might explain things, too._

No time to worry about him, now. The music awaits.

*

She heads straight for her dressing room once the encores are done, hoping to get a moment alone with the Ghost before the dresser gets there, and isn’t that silly. The now-usual bevy of men stands around the hall, and she pays them as little mind as always, until her hand is on the doorknob and she realises one of them is calling her name.

“Moira! Moira. Goodness, don’t you remember me?”

She turns on her heel, prepared to give him a sharp send-off. The man is young, perhaps her age, good-looking in a wide-eyed, delicate sort of way, with soft brown hair and enormous blue eyes; not tall, though, eye-to-eye with her. He is well-dressed, certainly, well-cut clothes and some sort of signet ring on one hand, and does look familiar. How, she can’t quite remember.

“If that is the sort of courtesy you use to a lady you have not been introduced to, sir, I -”

 _Moira, it’s me. Charles. It’s so wonderful to see you again, I had no idea until I saw you on stage. Moira?_

Her hand has flown to her mouth; she has no words.

 “ _Charles_?”  

 **6.**

Now she’s heard his mental voice, it’s easy to see the boy she knew in the man who stands before her; taller (a little, anyway), slender instead of skinny, more confident, but the same eyes, the same smile. She’d chide herself for not remembering him, but it’s been so long.

“It’s so good to see you, Charles.” She can’t stop smiling, has to pull back the hand that reaches for him instinctively. “What on earth brings you here?”

“To the door of your dressing room? You, of course.” Apparently the last decade has taught Charles how to flirt, as well as stand straight.

“And to New York?” Moira is aware, absently, of the crowd dispersing. If she’d known this would do it, she would have asked one of the boys at the opera – Armando, maybe, he’d not take it the wrong way – to put on a little show of this sort and clear the corridor.

“Oh, this and that. I’m to give some lectures at Columbia College – some conclusions I’ve come to about the most _fascinating_  work on heredity by a monk in Austria – but you don’t want to hear about that.”

“Later, if you like, you can talk about it to your heart’s content,” Moira contradicts him. She has never minded listening to Charles discuss the sciences – he could light up a room with his passion for it, and besides, she recalls quite distinctly a great many summer hours spent by him listening to   _her_  consider the merits of various composers. Given that Charles cannot carry a tune in a bucket, let alone distinguish a tenor from a baritone, it was a fair exchange. “But for now I really must change – will you wait? We have so much catching up to do, it may well take all night.”

 _You’re here about Raven, aren’t you?_ she asks silently. She was never good at projecting comments to Charles, not consistently, but there’s no _way_ he isn’t listening in intently right now –

 _I am. But I am glad to see you, Moira, truly_.

Aloud Charles says “But of course. I’ll guard your door for you. I hear you have some trouble of the ghostly sort, here.”

Moira responds before she can think about it. “Oh, not at all.”

Charles gives her – a look. She wonders, not quite idly, how well his childhood promise about reading her mind still holds.

 _It could hold true, and you think about the Ghost often enough that it wouldn’t matter a whit. Foolish girl._

“Your thoughts are your own, Moira.” Charles’ voice is a little weary, and Moira wonders how often he has had to offer that reassurance, over the years.

He stiffens, suddenly. Over his shoulder, Moira sees Raven; her eyes have gone wide, and gold, though the rest of her disguise still holds.

“You should talk to Branwen, Charles,” she says aloud. “I think you two are acquainted, aren’t you?”

Raven seems to make up her mind, and saunters casually over. “Oh, well enough. Go get out of that thing, Moira, I can entertain him while you change.” Her tone is casual, even a little saucy, but her eyes are wild. Moira is quite surprised she hasn’t turned and run.

“I’ll just be a minute,” Moira murmurs, and makes her escape into her dressing room. This is one encounter she doesn’t need to interrupt.

*

Her dresser isn’t there yet, so Moira moves aside some of the flowers and sits to take the pins out of her hair herself. It’s a relief to feel her hair tumble across her shoulders, freed from its constraints. She reaches for her comb, but as she does so, it starts to vibrate. So do her hairpins, dancing along the dressing table as if come to life. Even the necklace she’s still wearing feels – warm, and not from her skin. Like it’s alive.

She fights down the sudden urge to fling it across the room, and reaches back to unclasp it gently.

The clasp will not budge.

“I see you are enjoying the fruits of your success,” says the Opera Ghost, though it’s less _says_ than _hisses._ Moira pulls at the necklace clasp. It remains stubborn.

 _All that maundering about that silly pistol, and it’s still in my room, this was stupid, this was_ stupid –

“I have no idea what you’re speaking of,” she fires back, as icily as she knows how. “I was pleased to see an old friend just now -”

“That silly boy? I told you, I warned you, you don’t have any time for that sort of thing -”

“For speaking to old friends? I don’t recall anything about that in our bargain.” Moira can hear her voice rising. It’s unladylike and bad for her throat besides, but she’s _angry_ , now. “How _dare_ you! You’re my teacher, not my owner!”

“You will do as I say!”

“If you’re going to make ridiculous demands of that sort, you can come and make them in person, but I refuse to obey someone who hides in the walls!”

Her hairbrush goes flying across the room, followed by her hairpins, a small storm of indignance, but Moira turns to face the mirror and folds her arms. There is silence. She quails a little, inside – she can’t afford to anger her teacher, not really, she needs him. And yet.

“Well, then?”

Someone is banging on the door. Charles. Raven?

“Moira! Moira, are you all right in there? I heard shouting. Moira?”

“Moira, curse it, open your door!” Raven yells.

Moira has no ears for them, because ever so quietly, as if by magic – or on _very_ well-oiled hinges – the mirror at the back of the room swings open.

There is nothing beyond but darkness. Or – is there a figure, standing there, a few pace back? The mirror shades the gaslight. It is too dark to tell.

“Come with me, and we will discuss this,” says the Ghost, and, yes. He’s standing there. There’s a dim gleam in the darkness, as if off a mask.

“A minute, if you please,” Moira says, and finds the stump of candle in its holder her dresser had left the day before. She lights it. “Shall we, then?”

The door behind her is starting to creak a little, as if weight is being leant on it. It would be sensible, Moira reflects, to turn away, to open the door to Charles and Raven and everyone else, to leave the Ghost behind in his darkness.

Moira is so very _tired_ of being sensible. A touch of the dramatic, this evening, suits her much better.

The candle shows her a little more; a tall man, in evening wear, a crisp white mask covering the upper half of his face. His eyes – are they blue, or green? Hard to tell, in the flickering candlelight.

The Ghost holds out his hand, and Moira, with only a _slight_ qualm, takes it.

The door to the room bursts open, but the mirror has swung shut behind them.

*

Moira’s candle produces only a small, uncertain light that peters out quickly into the dark behind the walls of the opera house, as if the darkness is fighting it.

“You don’t need that,” the Ghost tells her. “I can find my way more easily without it. Blow it out.”

“Are you sure?”

It’s not that Moira doesn’t trust him, but – it is _very_ dark, so dark it seems that night itself must be blind.

“Quite sure.” The Ghost sounds amused, over the obvious anger, as if she is a frightened child, afraid of the dark.

Moira blows out the candle.

They walk down, and down again, backwards and forwards through a labyrinth of passages until Moira is quite turned around; her sense of direction is normally excellent, but there is nothing to tell by but the feel of the Ghost’s hand in hers and the sharp click of her shoes against board, then the dull thud of earth and stone. The air smells sharp and dusty, as if it sees little use, pooling here in the shadows.

In the dark and the quiet, the touch of hands takes on new significance; the Ghost’s hand is like any man’s, warm and dry, long fingers wrapping around hers. It has been some time since Moira walked hand in hand with a man; unexpectedly, irrationally, the touch sends a tingle up her spine. She can feel every whisper of her dress against her skin, every slide of her loose locks against her cheek and neck and shoulder. And still they go down.

They emerge into a much, much larger space; Moira can tell from the movement of the air and the damp smell of salt. Manhattan’s water table is high; they have reached some sort of underground lake, it seems.

“Shield your eyes,” says the Ghost, and Moira, guessing what is about to happen, does.

There is the scrape and hiss of flint and steel, and a lantern flickers to life. Moira keeps her head ducked, blinking, until her eyes adjust. When she lifts it, the Ghost is untying the rope of a small boat, barely adequate for two, from a ring in the wall.

He straightens. “I have other methods of crossing this, normally, but I don’t know that they’d do for the two of us, and I don’t think you want a dunking in this. I’m not _sure_ it connects anywhere to the sewers, but I’m not sure it doesn’t.”

“How romantic,” Moira says without thinking, then blushes. The Ghost is expressionless, even discounting the mask. “That is – quite right, I’d rather not risk it.”

The Ghost hands her into the boat, and they move silently across the water; Moira assumes it’s another expression of the Ghost’s power, whatever it is. Hairbrush, pins, chandelier, sandbags...

 _Metal_. She touches the necklace, wondering if the clasp has come free. _All metal, in some part, even the hooks the sandbags are tied to. The nails in this boat, I suppose. Is that it? I’ve never seen him touch anything that’s not_.

There’s no way to know, of course, except to ask. So she does.

“Metal. Is it metal, your gift? Doing things with it? Or just moving them?”

She has surprised him, she thinks; his movement towards her is sharp, unplanned. “Yes. How did you know about that?”

Moira gives him a wry smile. “You’re hardly the only person with a trick or two, in this company. I’ve had time to observe.”

He gives her a long, measured look, as if seeing something in her face that hadn’t been there before.

 _No, I’m not just a pretty voice, or a pretty face, Mr. Opera Ghost_. _Did that occur to you?_

She opens her mouth to say something more, but the boat is bumping up against the shore; they’re there, wherever _there_ is.

It had occurred to Moira that the Opera Ghost must live within the opera house – he is there too frequently for it to be otherwise, at odd hours – but she supposes that if she’d ever bothered to imagine his habitation, it would have taken on the air of the rumours the other girls whispered; some fabulous cave, perhaps, complete with candles more dribble than stem, silk hangings, and perhaps a pipe organ. Moira isn’t quite sure where her imagination had conjured up the pipe organ from.

The door they pass through, however, leads into a perfectly unexceptionable set of chambers, set as they are in what is clearly an abandoned cellar; sparse, what Moira might call a little over-tidy, and she is driven to distraction herself by the way Ororo, Jean, and Raven keep their room, but nothing to complain of. At first glance, there is nothing you would not expect to see in anyone’s bachelor quarters.

At second, though, a thousand things leap to the discerning gaze; the fantastic curlicues of metal, everywhere, forming the delicate lampstands, the twining legs of the desk, framing what look like architectural blueprints hung on the far wall. Nothing in the room might be called “scattered”, but musical scores rest on the upright piano in the corner and the arm of the one, comfortable-looking, armchair; Moira is not quite certain at this distance, but she fancies she recognises the overture to _Le Nozze di Figaro_. The other arm carries a newspaper Moira would not have seen except that Kitty has left the occasional copy lying in the ballet’s dressing room; it’s in Yiddish. One wall is nearly covered with books, more than Moira has seen anywhere outside a lending library.

“I hope you’re not going to feel the need to rearrange the furniture,” the Ghost says suddenly in her ear, and Moira does jump a little.

“First, if I had any inclination to housekeeping I had a number of perfectly respectable offers to take it up in London before I came over here, and second, I haven’t any right to rearrange anything of yours.” 

“You have more rights than you know, I think,” the Ghost murmurs, and Moira – isn’t sure what to make of that at _all_.

In lieu of making something of it, she crosses to the piano stool, and sits herself neatly on it. If she can’t take off her dratted shoes, she can at least be off her feet. It really was a _long_ way down here. “You brought me down here to berate me about Charles, I think. Would you like to start?”

The Ghost, as if to remove her advantage, seats himself in the armchair; it should look terribly silly, him in that mask and the strange ordinariness of the room, but he has enough presence that it’s nothing of the sort. He may be only a man, but he remains a mystery. Lamplight glints off auburn in his hair.

“When I offered to teach you, you promised to do as I said. To dedicate yourself to your music and nothing else. This...boy...is clearly a distraction.”

“I can’t imagine how you can tell that from the half a minute we spent talking,” Moira responds tartly, “and you don’t know the first thing -”

“I know how you looked when you saw him.” The Ghost leans forward, elbows on his knees. “You _promised_. I have seen half a dozen sopranos come and go through this company – Emma sends them on their way, mostly – and I won’t have the first with the backbone and talent and _passion_ to be good, to make my theatre _brilliant_ , falling -”

“Last I checked, Sebastian Shaw owned this theatre, and Emma Frost through him -”

“ _Don’t speak to me about Sebastian Shaw.”_ The Ghost is on his feet, in an instant, a step or two bring him looming over her. Moira is aware, again, of how alone they are down here, how foolish she has been.

She stands. If he’s going to play _that_ game, she won’t remain sitting like some admonished schoolgirl.

“I’ll speak to you of what I please, _sir_.”

“You will not,” he snarls, “you said you’d do as I say -”

He’s staring straight into her eyes and Moira will regret this, she’s quite sure, but he’s not Charles and he can’t read her mind and, really, she’s nothing to lose –

She darts out a hand, quick as Ororo’s lightning, and snatches the mask from his face.

That’s the plan, at any rate. It ends up snagged on his ear, dangling sadly, but the Ghost has her wrist in a grasp of iron and the necklace at her throat is tightening and Moira is certain for a second she cannot _breathe –_

The necklace loosens. The hand doesn’t.

He’s quite ordinary, after all, though maybe more like this lair of his, astonishing at a second glance; an attractive enough man, some years older than her, with not a disfiguring scar to be seen. Not even a mole.

Moira is only a _little_ disappointed. Her heart is beating too fast for her to register much more than fear.

“You prying little – you _Pandora -_ ”

She works her mouth, but nothing comes out; it’s dry. Her wrist hurts. She tries again. “You did promise me – implicitly, if you like – a discussion in person. I can conceive of nothing less personal than a mask.”

He stares down at her, quite impassive. He doesn’t need a mask to hide his thoughts, this Ghost of hers. “You had no right.”

“I thought I had more than I knew,” Moira whispers, and he lets her hand go. She massages her wrist, wincing; there are likely to be bruises, tomorrow.

“I hurt you.” The Ghost sounds half-surprised, as he disentangles the mask and lays it down on the piano.

“Rather.” She’s disinclined to let him down gently. “But no matter. You look – more familiar than I had expected. Have we seen each other, somewhere outside this room?”

“Flowers,” he says tersely, and she remembers the man who brushed past her, that first night she played Belinda. She can’t help smiling a little.

“Oh, yes, I remember. Had you just come from Box Five, then?”

“I’ve never sat in Box Five,” the Ghost admits candidly, re-seating himself on the piano stool. Moira takes the armchair. “I slip into the stalls, most performances. Sometimes the Gods. No-one looks for me there.”

“That’s because the view is terrible.” Moira has seen her share of opera from the Gods, and you might as well close your eyes for all the good they do you, unless you have an opera glass, which she never has.

“The staging is secondary. I come to make sure of the music.”

“Then why the fuss around Box Five?”

The Ghost grins, for the first time, a smile with far too many teeth for comfort; Moira can’t help liking the sight of it, all the same. “It used to drive Andre and Firmin up the wall and down the other side. Cheap entertainment, I admit, but entertainment all the same. And once they sold up – it only adds to the mystery, and I can use every scrap of that I get.”

Moira chuckles. “A good enough reason, given what I’ve heard of the previous owners. You may not wish to tell me, but I have to ask – why, though? Why hide down here? You have no need to that I can see.”

The Ghost drops his eyes. “A long story, and not one for tonight.”

She can live with that. For the nonce.

“I’ve never heard you sing more than a few notes,” she changes the subject. “But you seem to have music enough.”

“I’ve never sung for an audience.” He tilts his head, inquiring. “Why, do you want me to?”

“Properly, I should have asked you for a song before I agreed to let you teach me.”

“We haven’t done very much _properly_.” His lips curl a little. “Very well.”

He _can_ sing, her Ghost, his tenor richer and deeper than Janos or even Armando. Moira doesn’t recognise the words – her French and Italian are good, her German only adequate, and it’s none of those – but the tune is that of a lullaby.

The lamplight, the room, the voice; it all seems dreamlike, a scene taking place inside her mind, set entirely aside from the cold and reasonable light of day. Moira falls asleep there in the armchair, the Ghost’s voice following her softly into dreams.

 **7.**

She wakes on the rug in front of the room’s small fireplace, covered by a woollen blanket; the rug is thick enough that she doesn’t ache from sleeping on the floor, but it’s hardly the most comfortable of places.

“Good, you’re awake,” the Ghost says crisply. “I couldn’t leave you in that armchair, you’d have woken with your neck permanently out of line, but I didn’t think you’d like to wake in a strange bed, even alone.”

That would have been a _great_ deal more disconcerting. Even alone.

“I’m quite prepared to concede that point, and your rug is more comfortable than a few I’ve slept on,” Moira says, sitting up. She can, however, feel lines creased into her face from the angle of the blanket. She must look a sight. “I don’t suppose there’s somewhere I can freshen up?”

Face washed and other necessaries attended to, in the Ghost’s small bathroom, Moira feels much readier to face the day. Or rather, the endless night – the windowless nature of this place precludes dawn – but her body tells her it’s most likely morning.

“Ready to be returned to your friends, Miss MacTaggert?” the Ghost asks once she emerges. He hasn’t resumed the mask, and is dressed plainly in dark but nondescript clothing. Moira almost prefers him this way.

“They must be very concerned.” A wonder, actually, that she didn’t feel the brush of Charles’ mind. They must be still well within his range, and she knows from talking to her roommates that their own powers only grew stronger, as they aged. At ten, fourteen, Charles could alter memories, change minds, steal secrets. What can he do now?

“Although -” the Ghost pauses. “If you’d like breakfast -”

He’s been confident, even arrogant, through this entire encounter; it cheers Moira to see him awkward.

“I’d love it,” she beams at him, and is rewarded with a less terrifying version of the overly-toothed smile.

They break their fast in another small room that barely holds stove and table, on strong black coffee and bread and cheese. Moira makes a discreet face at the coffee.

The Ghost interprets it correctly. “Wishing for tea?”

“I lived twelve years in England. I rarely drink anything else of a morning. An old friend – Charles, who you object to so – started me on it when I was eleven, and I never stopped. Besides, Americans can’t make coffee to save themselves, for all they drink it.”

The Ghost’s face darkens a little at the mention of Charles, but he makes a small noise of agreement.

“You’d like him, you know,” Moira adds boldly. “Charles. He loves music, and he’s _brilliant_ – really brilliant. I used to practice my French and Italian with him, when we were children. He can’t carry a tune to save himself, of course, but that’s not a _fatal_ flaw.”

The Ghost’s thin-lipped mouth quirks as if he very much disagrees on that point, but all he says is, “And he’s here by chance?”

“No. His sister dances in the ballet. She may have – she may have run away from home, a little, to do it. I think he’s here to find her.”

“How do you run away from home ‘a little’? And which girl in the ballet?”

Moira sips her coffee. “A fair point. Branwen.”

“Raven, you mean – the lovely blue one who practices shapeshifting in front of your mirror.”

 “You’ve been eavesdropping.”

The Ghost chuckles. “I hear everything that goes on in this building, my dear. Will she leave with him?”

She shakes her head. “Because she’s too good a dancer to leave for propriety’s sake, I expect you mean? I wouldn’t worry. Raven is _extraordinarily_ stubborn, and she left home precisely because Charles was expecting her to come out and marry.”

“As opposed to all the other, docile, propriety-obsessed women in this opera house.”

“Modesty and humility are very female virtues, don’t you think?” Moira looks up through her lashes. “I’m sure we all try to demonstrate them.”

“I’m sure of nothing of the sort.”

When Moira slips back into her dressing room, it is quite as it was the night before, with the new and strange addition of Charles Xavier, snoring gently against his fist on the stool in front of her dressing table.

“How chivalrous,” the Ghost mutters dryly.

“Oh, go back to your cellar and let me deal with this,” Moira tells him with more than a hint of impatience. What on _earth_ does Charles think he’s doing?

The Ghost bows, with a great deal of irony, and retreats. The mirror shuts silently behind him. Moira vows to learn how to open it – if it _can_ be opened from her side.

Barely a second later, Raven-as-Branwen sticks her head in the door; her eyes go very wide when she sees Moira, and she lets out a shriek that has Moira clapping her hands to her ears.

“MOIRA!”

Charles wakes with a start, nearly tipping himself off the stool. “What – I – Moira! You’re back!”

“You’re talking as if I’d been gone for days,” Moira protests. A thought occurs to her. “I _haven’t_ been gone for days, have I?”

“Only a night,” Raven assures her, sliding smoothly into her own skin as she leans back against the door and folds her arms, “but where _were_ you? You weren’t – Moira, it wasn’t the Ghost?”

“We had a nice little chat,” Moira says, after a second of thought, “about my future. In opera.”

Charles is watching her, eyes wide and guileless. Moira doesn’t believe it. Charles, as a child, was anything _but_ guileless. Charles-the-man seems unlikely to have regressed to a more straightforward manner of thinking.

“Are you all right? Do you need anything?” he asks, standing with a grimace and a hand to his lower back. Moira wonders if he spent the night on that stool.

“Nothing except some rest and quiet.” It’s true enough; breakfast had put her in a pleasant mood, but she quails at the thought of all the questions and concern likely to be directed her way in the next hour or so. Better if she could avoid all of it, but that’s just not going to be possible.

“You know I’m at your service, of course, you just have to ask,” Charles assures her, reaching out to touch her hand. Moira lets his fingers tighten around the tips of hers, for a fraction of a second; but when she pulls back, the long lace cuffs on her _Faust_ dress shift, and the dull shine of the bruises coming up on her wrist – not deep ones, but bruises all the same – is visible. And quite visibly from someone else’s hand.

She can _feel_ Charles’ alarm; she’d forgotten, in a decade, his tendency to project in moments of strong emotion. In retrospect, it’s a surprise he hadn’t before this. His control must have improved out of all recognition.

Raven didn’t quite see, but her eyes flick to Charles, then Moira; she knows something’s wrong.

 _Pond, pond, pond_ , Moira thinks desperately, letting her mind go blank and blue and still, nothing of last night’s memories in it at all.

“It’s nothing,” she blurts out. “Nothing – serious.”

“I hope no-one’s -”

“Charles, I’m not a _child_ , and if you think I’d stand for mistreatment -”

“I don’t see you standing for anything of the sort, my dear girl.”

And Moira wouldn’t, of course; she’s inclined to let her wrist pass, considering that she had behaved rather shockingly in respect to the Ghost’s mask, but violence has never brought her to obedience, quite the opposite.

“Raven, you should probably let everyone else know I’m – I’m back,” Moira says.

Raven makes a face. “As long as you’re ready to be mobbed. _Shaw’s_ here this morning. You’ve made quite a scene, you’ve no idea – and I think we’ve sold all the boxes for the rest of the season. Except box five, of course.”

“Sold the boxes?” Charles and Moira chorus in mutual confusion.

Raven smirks. “A new, younger singer displacing the opera’s diva is passing gossip. A singer vanishing from her dressing room after the performance – they’ll be turning people away. This is the theatre, Moira. Mozart and Handel are all very well, but it’s a good scandal that _really_ packs the aisles.”

“Raven, I hope you’re not going out of here like that,” Charles says, with more than a hint of disapproval.

“Charles, darling,” Raven purrs, “you wouldn’t have a thing to say about it if I strolled out of here _stark naked_ , but as it happens, I don’t go around with my normal face, except in particular company. Stop _worrying_.”

She slips back into her Branwen-skin, and shuts the door. Slams it, rather.

“Raven is hardly the only one here with – differences.” Moira tries to be tactful. “She can go about as herself more often than not. I think she finds it relaxing.”

Charles drums his fingers on the dressing table. “It’s not that – I just want her to be _safe_.”

“And happy?”

“Do you think she was so very unhappy?”

“She ran away from _home_ , Charles.”

He sighs. “I know. And yes, happy. I’ve been worrying about Raven for years, you can’t expect me to stop now.”

“Perhaps not.”

“Moira – will you tell me where you went, and why? I could sense your mind, and your – companion’s, I’ll admit, and I didn’t think you were in any danger. But -”

“You heard what I told Raven.”

“Which was rather short on detail.”

“We haven’t seen each other for a decade, Charles, and I’m not your sister. Do I owe you more than that?”

“As you say. Perhaps not.” Charles smiles at her, curse him. He always had far too charming a smile. It recalls the boy he no longer is. “But we were friends, and it would please me to know _you_ were safe and happy, too.”

“You said you knew I was in no danger.”

“Perhaps I should have said, I knew the Ghost intended you no ill – last night. But people’s intentions are not always a guide to their actions.”

“You were right the first time. I’m _not_ in any danger, nor in need of a guardian or saviour, if you were applying for either role.”

Charles’ eyes flick immediately to her wrist, and Moira wishes heartily he’d never noticed it. “You know your own life, of course, and I’ve just stumbled headfirst into it. I am glad to see you doing what you love. You always deserved a stage.”

“I’d have thought the life of an opera singer was hardly – proper – enough for you. Or that of a ballet dancer, for Raven.”

Charles fixes her with a steady gaze. “At one point I might not have. But I do think everyone – everyone, Moira – should be able to fulfil their gifts. Whatever those may be.” He pauses, wets his lips. “Speaking of which. The Opera Ghost, Moira, do you know -”

But he’s interrupted by Ororo and Jean, Alison and Betsy and the rest of the chorus girls and half the ballet behind them, bursting unceremoniously into the dressing room to drag Moira out. They are a chorus of concern and well-wishing. Moira has to assure them again and again that she’s fine, she came to no harm, she wasn’t kidnapped. Angel’s eyes are narrow, but she accepts Moira’s assurances with a nod, and the other girls follow her lead.

“It’s just that we thought it might be the Ghost,” Sean babbles, “and they say all those things about him – someone told me last week that he _strangles_ people, you know, with a lasso -”

“What would he be doing with a lasso?” Jean asks with scepticism.

“None of that talk!” Angel snaps. “You all know better than to gossip, especially about _him_. When has he ever done any of you harm? What have you got to fear? So keep your mouth shut and do your job, Sean.”

Charles has been lost in the mob, but Moira hears him in her head, all the same.

 _I hope we can speak later, Moira. Your secrets are your own, but I think we have a great deal to talk about aside from that._

Moira doesn’t respond. She isn’t sure what to say.

Azazel looms suddenly out of the crowd, to scowl at her and admonish in his thick accent about responsibility and not letting things go to her head. He drags her, muttering all the way, to the manager’s office. Shaw is there, and Emma, and Stanton the general manager, and Moira is suddenly wishing she’d turned around last night and left the mirror behind her.

Shaw is all smiling charm, warmly relieved that their new star – his words, no-one else’s – has been safely found, but there’s something hard behind it. Moira snatches her hand back from him as quickly as propriety allows, and keeps her shiver on the inside. Emma is watching her, hard-eyed.

“You complain about _my_ perfectly reasonable displeasure with the way this theatre is run – and then this girl is allowed to run off with who knows who, all night, like a common -”

“Miss _Frost_ ,” Stanton says, pained, and

“Miss MacTaggert is only as common as you,” drawls Azazel.

Emma goes _white_ with rage – almost, for a moment, queerly transparent. Moira looks pointedly at her lap, trying to appear as meek and tractable as possible.

“Ladies, ladies.” Shaw smiles. Moira wishes he would stop smiling. “There’s plenty of room here for both of you, isn’t there? And I’m sure Miss MacTaggert is going to be _most_ well-behaved from now on. We have a new opera coming up. I’m sure she wouldn’t want to jeopardise her role in that.”

“No, Mr. Shaw,” Moira murmurs.

“If she _has_ a role,” Emma mutters, tossing her hair, but that isn’t up to her and she knows it.

“Where’d you hide away your backbone, in there?” Azazel asks her once they’re out of the office and he has been directed to escort her back to Angel’s care, not in quite so many words.

“It’s removable,” Moira retorts. “For situations where it’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

Azazel snorts with amusement. “Not to worry. If you work as you have been, you’ll be able to throw all the temper tantrums you like soon enough.”

In some ways the compliment means more than the Ghost’s approval – Azazel seems more, well, impartial – and Moira smiles, genuinely. “I’ll save them up, then.”

For now, though, she just wants the rest and quiet she told Raven about earlier.

 **8.**

 Charles finds her the next day, when she’s hidden herself away up on the roof of the opera house, on the small flat area in among the chimneys and turrets. It’s smoky and smells of the streets, not a small thing when the streets are mostly crowded with horses and _their_ associated smells, but it’s outdoors and Moira does miss that, though she only spent those four years in the country.

It gets more use than solitude – Moira knows that Hank comes out here, since he can’t go out on the street these days during the day or even at night without a large coat and wide-brimmed hat, but so does Ororo, to feel the weather, and Angel, to stretch her wings and _fly_. It’s just Moira right now, which Charles must know, with his knack for minds.

“I was hoping we could have that talk,” he says, sounding bright and cheerful and all too hopeful. Moira has learned to _hate_ that particular tone of voice. “No ulterior motives, I promise. Just about what we’ve both being doing for the last decade. Not that my life has been of any particular interest.”

He’s carrying what looks like a parcel of food from street vendors and a bottle of wine. Charles always was a terrible opportunist.

“Also, food,” he adds, hefting both. “Raven said you hadn’t had any lunch.”

“I wasn’t hungry,” Moira lies, but her mouth is watering. “Oh, fine. And I don’t believe a word of that nonsense about your life, you went up to Oxford and finished your degree, there must be _something_ of interest in that. Raven said you were going back for your doctorate?”

“That’s the plan.” Charles sits down on the ledge beside her. Moira hopes he brought a corkscrew.

“I did,” he says, a touch smugly. “But – oh, bother. Glasses.”

“Wine with lunch, Charles? Isn’t that a little early?”

“Oh, well, if you don’t -”

“Give me that.” She fishes the corkscrew out of his outer pocket, then flushes at the over-familiarity; they’d been hands all over each other as children, boosting each other into trees and sharing things in pockets, she hadn’t thought.

Charles, to his credit, says nothing, but lets her open the wine; he undoes the string on the food. They never shared anything like this back in England, but Moira supposes he must have eaten chips and cod out of newspaper more than once in Oxford.

“Mostly so drunk I could barely stay on my feet,” he agrees. “I wonder how it affected the taste.”

“A good question. Do you always respond to things people don’t say?”

Charles shrugs. “Never, if I’m paying attention. But it’s safe enough, with you – if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t.” Moira doesn’t, if she thinks about it. He did it enough when they were young, and her deeper memories were always sacrosanct. She supposes she trusts him enough for that.

He smiles warily, but says nothing.

“Have you told anyone else here, about your mind-reading? Aside from Raven and I. You should talk to Jean, in our dormitory room – she can, though not as well or as often.”

“I know. And Miss Frost, your diva – she can, I think, though there’s something odd about her mind, something – reflective. I did have the most fascinating chat with that lad who works with the scenery – Hank, wasn’t it? I’ve never seen someone with such an obvious _physical_ mutation, apart from Raven.”

“ _What_ did you call it?”

“A mutation. A change, you know –“

“From the Latin, I see. Did you come up with that, or is it one of those new scientific terms? We’re not much for the scientific literature here, I must confess. Except for Hank, in his spare moments.”

“Oh, I know, that’s what we were discussing – and no, it’s not anything like widespread. A few of us at Oxford came up with it. It could apply to any change, of course, but those like mine, or Raven’s, or anyone else here – they seem more obvious, than just a change in eye colour. Which might not even _be_ a spontaneous change, if Mendel’s work is accurate.”

“Mendel?”

“That Austrian monk. But anyway – so we’d be _mutants_ , all of us.”

“Changelings,” Moira murmurs. She takes as ladylike a drink of wine as she can manage straight from the bottle, and offers it to Charles. “It suits you.”

“Your Ghost is one too, isn’t he?” Charles presses. “I can tell, you know – mutant minds have something, I don’t know, something _different_ about them. You both vanished behind that mirror, and – his mind was fascinating, you have no idea.”

Moira wonders what makes a mind _fascinating_ </’i>. “You know I won’t talk about that, Charles.”

“I know.” Charles smiles wryly. “I just wonder – how does a man become a ghost? Does he have a name? Why does he give advice about opera? What’s _his_ gift? Why does he have such an interest in you? Well, that one I can guess.”

“It’s not like that,” Moira asserts hastily, “really – he cares about opera the same way we all do, here, and he thinks I can be good. Can be _better_. And I told you I _won’t talk about it._ You’re just trying to lure me into thinking about it at the top of my thoughts, where you can scoop it off and still keep your promises.”

“Er.” Charles makes his oops-I-got-caught face. That one hasn’t changed.

Moira licks her fingers clean of salt in a _perfectly_ unladylike way, uncaring. “You are a _terrible_ person, Charles Xavier. I bet you accidentally forgot the glasses with every girl in Oxford.”

“I have no idea what you think I was doing with girls in Oxford.”

Moira looks him up and down, frankly. “Don’t I just.”

Charles looks as if he’s going to choke. It’s just perfect.

“You were going to tell me about Oxford, anyway,” she prompts. “Do go on. I’m all ears.”

He takes a moment to recover, but Charles has always loved the sound of his own voice, so it’s only a minute or two before he’s well into a set of rowdy tales about his Oxford years. Raven even features in them, on her school holidays. Moira gets more than a bit of blackmail material that will come in very handy later on. She tells him stories of the opera, in return – not about the Ghost, but safe stories, of her roommates and Emma’s tantrums and the time the second bassoon fell into the violins.

It’s so very comfortable, by the end of the hour, so much like the talks she and Charles used to have, that she nearly forgets how much older they are and the secrets that aren’t hers to tell him. She had loved Charles, she remembers, her closest friend and very nearly a little more. Until this moment she’d forgotten why.

Charles kisses her hand, when he leaves, and the touch of his lips reminds Moira, quite irrationally, of the way the Ghost’s hand had felt around hers, the night before.

“I hope you know you can trust me, for anything you wish to trust me with,” he tells her, before he takes his leave.

“How long will you be in the city?” she asks.

“A few weeks, at least. Those lectures, I told you.”

“Then I shall look forward to your attendance at the opera.”

“Oh, you’ll be sick of the sight of me.”

Moira wonders if that’s a promise, and if so, why it doesn’t bother her nearly as much as it should.

He holds open the door, and they go back inside.

*

One thing he said does stick in Moira’s head particularly, and causes her to make an inquiry of the Ghost, a week later. They’ve moved lessons, when they can manage it, down to his rooms; there’s a small entrance at the side of the opera house Moira can slip in and out of, besides the passage down from her dressing room, and the sight of her leaving the opera house soothes a few fears about her connection to the Ghost.

“What’s your name?”

The Ghost, who is carefully straightening a sheaf of music, stops. “My _name_?”

“Your name. You know mine, after all, and I must assume you have one. I’m not asking for your life story, but a first – or a last – would be rather more convenient than calling you the Ghost.”

He frowns, considering. “I’ve heard your new friend – Raven’s brother – is a reader of minds. Like young Jean.”

“Like young Jean as – as a beach is like a pebble,” Moira admits, because it’s true, and the Ghost deserves that warning. “But he promised me a very long time ago that the privacy of my mind – outside of passing thoughts, he hears those like we hear muttered comments – was mine alone. And he’s no new friend, he’s my oldest. I trust him.”

The Ghost is still frowning.

“ _Please,_ ” she adds, a sudden impulse.

There’s a long pause, and then: “Erik.”

“Erik,” Moira repeats. “It suits you.”

“That’s a very cheap piece of flattery.”

“It’s the truth.”

His mouth quirks. “If you say so.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask, too – what’s this?” Moira taps a metal box that sits on a side table. “It looks like a music box, but -”

“It is.” The Ghost – Erik – strides over to stand next to her, lifts the lid. The whole thing is metal, delicate tracery on the outside, all the gears and cogs exposed within; most music boxes have dancing figurines to obscure the workings, but Moira appreciates the spare beauty of this one, the revelation of the machinery behind the music. It plays a graceful waltz.

“That was my mother’s favourite,” Erik murmurs.

“Did you make it for her?” Moira can scarcely breathe. It must be the music.

“No. This was after she died.” He flips it shut with a crisp snap. “Was there anything else you wanted to ask?”

His tone is hard, now.

Moira shakes her head. “No. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up anything that would distress you.”

“I am hardly unused to distress,” he retorts, and the conversation was clearly over.

Moira wishes that the man didn’t have so many dratted sore spots that he papered over, like rotten wood and sound covered together by the same wallpaper. It would make avoiding them so much easier if she had any idea what – or where – they were.

 _But his secrets are his_ , she reminded herself, _and the only thing he promised me was music._

*

Charles is true to his word, and it is rare for three days together to pass without Moira laying eyes on him, over the next two weeks. He flirts outrageously with any girl who speaks to him. Moira laughs herself sick at the speech she hears him giving Angel, especially with Angel’s unimpressed impression.

“You see,” he says, “your wings – which are lovely, may I add – are what we call a _mutation_ , or a change. It means there’s something new about you that no-one’s seen before. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Darwin’s work, but it’s probable that changes like this are what led to the evolution of humans -”

“Darwin? Wasn’t he the one who said our grandparents way back were apes?”

“I – well, not _exactly_ , you see -”

Angel pats him on the arm. “Keep working on that one and you might pick up a girl with it one day. Better luck with the blue-stockings down at the university, though. I can see where Raven gets all her way with words from. Between the pair of you, it’s a wonder anyone ever gets a chance to talk.”

It came out that Charles was Raven’s brother soon enough, and what her true name was. Everyone seems to have taken to it well enough, mostly approving of Charles’ concern for his sister (although he’s been taken aside by half a dozen of the men and a few of the women, everyone from Azazel to Ororo, to advise him against trying to pry her out of the Metropolitan Opera against her wishes.) Best of all, it makes his association with Moira much less of a cause for gossip – old childhood friends are the next best thing to brothers, everyone knows _that_.

Angel saunters off. Moira is giggling quietly, behind a pillar, so hard she’s leaning against it.

 _Oh, shut_ up _,_ Charles sends to her miserably. _I can hear you laughing in your head quite well._

That’s a perfect excuse for Moira to laugh aloud. “Angel, Charles, _really_?”

“I was just being polite!”

*

Erik, however, does not view Charles innocently or benignly, no matter Moira’s protestations. Every time Charles gets within a foot of her – in her dressing room, the auditorium, the foyer, the stairs, anywhere but the roof, and once then – everything metal within reach takes on a low vibration that Moira’s musically-trained ears can only just make out. Charles doesn’t notice it for a few days, but once he does, his whole face lights up.

“It’s metal, isn’t it?” he says excitedly. “He can move metal. Oh, that must be so useful for all _sorts_ of things, that’s _amazing,_ I knew he was powerful but -”

They happen to be in Moira’s dressing room; her hairpins fling themself at Charles in a cloud of pique.

“ _Ow!_ ” Charles exclaims, brushing at them as they fall sullenly to the floor.

“Charles,” Moira says in exasperation, and throws him out on principle, over his protests.

Erik is unusually smug at their lesson that afternoon. Moira is beginning to consider that Raven might have the right idea about men after all.

*

Things come to a head with Charles when Moira, against all her better instincts and _only_ because of Raven’s pleading, agrees to dine with the pair of them at the townhouse Charles is renting. She is pleasantly surprised when Irene shows up, as well – Charles sends in passing _She’s important to Raven, which makes her important to me, and besides I should at least be allowed to decide if she’s good enough for my_ sister.

Dinner passes pleasantly enough with the four of them, and it’s only when the three women are preparing to leave – which means coats and scarves for Moira and Irene, and a change of face for Raven (“Does that mean you’re really naked _all the time_?” Charles finally realises, with a face of horror. “It’s winter! Tell me you’re at least wearing – oh, thank goodness, you have a _real_ coat.”

“Remember how I _ran away from home_ , Charles?” Raven says meaningfully, but allows him to fuss at her coat with a look of smug sisterhood that Moira, who was emphatically an only child, rather envies.)

They are almost out the door when Charles leans over and kisses Moira softly goodnight.

It only takes a second, but it feels to Moira like the opening note of an overture, one of those seconds that lasts an eternity; she is aware, abruptly, too intensely, of Charles’ fingers curling around her cheek, the crisp bite of winter air swirling in the doorway contrasted with his warmth next to her, the near-brush of their bodies. It only takes a second, before Charles pulls away and looks at her nervously. Moira can’t meet his eyes.

“Charles! What do you think you’re _doing_?”

“I should think that’s quite obvious.”

“Charles.” Moira steels herself to look at him. “I’m not going to – I don’t have time for this sort of thing. I have to concentrate on my music.”

“For how long? The rest of your life? With never a chance to -”

“And how long would this last?” Moira gestures between them. “Sooner or later you’re going to marry a nice girl whose brother went to Oxford with you and have a dozen children to play down by the pond, like we did. My life is here. Yours isn’t. Don’t – toy with me.” She is surprised at the bitterness in her own tone; did she think better of Charles, or is it so upsetting to think of those nice girls, probably making their curtsies in London at this moment? “I’ll sing a song at your wedding, and we’ll laugh about this. I’ve enjoyed seeing you again. Please don’t make it difficult.”

“Or I could marry _you_ ,” Charles shrugs, a curious, too-straight line to his mouth that renders it not a joke, despite the light tone. Moira’s heart stops in her throat.

“I have to go.” Moira picks up her skirts and _runs_ after Raven and Irene. Charles doesn’t chase after her. He is not, damn his eyes, a _stupid_ man.

 “I hope that wasn’t too embarrassing,” Raven says sympathetically as Moira catches her up. “Irene said it would go better if we went ahead then, or he would have tried it later.”

“That would have been _much_ worse,” Irene nods.

“My brother’s an idiot, you know,” Raven confides as she loops her arm in Moira’s. “Don’t bother yourself about it.”

“The trouble is that he _isn’t_ ,” Moira says, in decided misery. “That would be _easy_.”

“No, he’s still an idiot,” says Raven, and Moira laughs a little.

 _He’ll be over it by the next time I see him. Charles did always get the funniest ideas in his head._

 _He has to be._

*

At her lesson the next day, they go through two arias from _Figaro_.

“I’m sensing a theme,” Moira comments.

“They’ll probably make the announcement tomorrow morning,” Erik tells her. “This is going to be the next production.”

“And how do you know _that_?”

“I have my ways.”

“You have Azazel.”

“What on earth gives you _that_ impression?”

“He gave me the score for Emma’s ballad _before_ you pulled your little stunt, back before the fete. It was hardly subtle.”

Erik mutters something reprehensible in German, or possibly Yiddish. Moira wonders if he keeps kosher. Then she wonders what exactly is _involved_ in kosher, apart from the bit about pork. It couldn’t be that difficult, could it?

 _And what do you care?_

“He wasn’t supposed to do that,” Erik announces finally in English. “I’ll have to have a word with him.”

“As the Opera Ghost, or your own self?”

“Azazel only knows the Ghost.”

“He’s a – what was Charles’ word for it – a _mutant_ , then, too. But what’s his trick?”

“It isn’t obvious?”

“Apart from his talent for appearing where you least expect him, I haven’t noticed anything.”

Erik smirks. It’s as good as a shout.

“Hah. It’s the appearing, isn’t it? He can – what, disappear and reappear, like a magician’s assistant?”

“Did you know you’re far too observant for your own good?”

“I rather thought you liked it.” Moira raises an eyebrow.

They’ve been standing together beside the piano, chatting comfortably; Erik is close enough, and the room cool enough, despite its insulation by the earth around it, that it reminds her of Charles, last night, and the warmth of his body as he leaned in and –

“I have dance practice,” Moira says, and flees as quickly as she is able. She doesn’t dare glance back to see what Erik’s face looks like.

What on earth is she _doing_?

 **9.**

The Opera Ghost makes a spectacular reappearance the next morning, with the delivery of two notes that put Moira’s professional life – and, worse, her _personal_ life – all in an uproar.

The first note appears in the manager’s office atop a copy of _Figaro_ , and is a firm – even peremptory – demand that Moira be given the role of Susanna. Emma is relegated to the minor – insultingly minor, to Moira’s slightly horrified way of thinking – role of Cherubino, the pageboy. She doesn’t even get the consolation role of the Countess.

 _The role of Susanna requires charm and appeal_ ,  the note reads. _Miss Frost, in every role she has performed in this theatre, has all the charm and appeal of an icicle. The role of Cherubino, which requires very little in the way of acting, is far more suited to her._

Azazel reads out the note with every appearance of enjoyment. Moira gains the strong impression he _agrees_ with it. It’s a little mortifying.

Emma flies into an unmatched fury, during which she insists, beyond all reason or logic (at least that Moira can see) that the Opera Ghost is a fiction of Moira’s lurid imagination (which is clearly untrue, and besides, Moira’s imagination is hardly _lurid_ ), that Moira wants nothing more than to displace her (which is untrue, at least insofar as the _level_ of Moira’s desire to do so), that Moira is clearly having a passionate and scandalous affair with Charles (which is _absolutely_ not true, but makes Moira blush anyway thinking about Charles’ inexplicable behaviour of the night before), and finally that everyone else at the opera house is partaking in a conspiracy to get rid of her, because they all hate her and are jealous of her talent.

This last _is_ true, insomuch as the emotions of the entire company – and orchestra, and stagehands, and dancers – with regard to Emma range from indifference to outright hatred, largely because Emma hasn’t put a toe out of her chosen path to try and make friends with any of them. A number of the chorus are quite jealous of Emma’s voice. It’s a very lovely voice. The idea that there is somehow a concerted conspiracy to get rid of her is, however, nonsense, and Moira is quite certain – she really must consult Charles on the matter, if she can bring herself to speak to him again anytime soon – that Emma can read minds. You’d think it might give her some insight. Apparently, however, emotion overrides everything else.

Azazel’s brisk dismissal of Emma’s theory ensures Moira’s escape from the entire mess, although the Lord only knows which part she’ll end up with by the time this is done. If Emma has her way, she’ll be relegated to the chorus. Moira doesn’t intend to let _that_ happen, but sees no benefit in having it out with the woman in front of witnesses and without any certain support of her own. (Azazel is far too entertained by the whole spectacle to count as support.)

The trouble is, despite the outrageousness of Erik’s casual demand – and it is more than a little outrageous – Moira can’t help thinking that he might be, well, _right_. He’s pinpointed the problem with Emma’s singing precisely. Emma is technically brilliant, and cares about her audience – and fellow cast members – approximately as much, or perhaps a little less than, the expensive fur coats she leaves carelessly thrown around her dressing room. (Moira has coaxed an opinion about that out of her dresser, who sometimes assists Emma. Moira hadn’t realised the woman _knew_ that sort of language.)

To sing well – to sing brilliantly – takes passion, takes emotion, takes _caring_. Moira cares, she _does_. She is all too aware, every time she takes the stage, that at least some people there have paid to see her sing, to see something beyond the everyday, and she does her best to give it to them. You cannot be a performer without putting your heart on the stage for everyone to see, but Emma is like some sorceress in a Russian fairytale who keeps her heart locked away in an egg inside a duck inside a tree beyond the mountains and across the sea, for fear it will be stolen away.

But Emma’s flaws do not make Moira necessarily ready for the lead in as demanding an opera as _Figaro_ , and Moira is angry – really, truly angry – that no-one had bothered to ask her if _she_ felt ready for it. She cannot be an entirely impartial judge of her own talent or preparedness, but her opinion is at least somewhat relevant. She has a word or two for Erik, next she sees him.

That word or two grows to a few paragraphs – perhaps an essay – once she sees Charles, standing in the foyer, echoingly empty at this early hour with no ticket sales in the offing. He looks for all the world like a crestfallen puppy.

“Might I have a word with you, Moira?”

“I don’t want to talk about dinner,” Moira says firmly, knowing that Charles will pick up her thought that ‘dinner’ encompasses ‘everything that happened last night, especially the part where you practically _proposed_ to me, I can’t understand what you were thinking, and men claim _women_ are confusing.’

“Women _are_ confusing,” Charles insists.

Moira narrows her eyes. “And what part of ‘don’t want to talk’ -”

“You were quite clear. But actually, I wanted a word with you about this.”

He is, Moira realises, holding a note. The handwriting on it is – by this point – very familiar.

Her heart sinks a little. “I don’t have any idea – well, no, I have an _excellent_ idea what that says, but I’d like to be pleasantly surprised. May I read it?”

“As it concerns you, I should think so.” He hands it over.

 _Mr. Xavier,_ begins the note, which is a subtle sort of insult all of its own, excepting that Charles has always been awkwardly dismissive of the baronetcy he inherited before Moira even met him. On the other hand, Erik is extremely good at ferreting out pieces of information Moira never would have expected and ferociously meritocratic (as long as he gets to decide what’s meritorious, anyway), so the insult is likely quite calculated.

 _Mr. Xavier,_

 _It has come to my attention that you have continued in your courting of Miss MacTaggert. As I am certain you are aware, she has an unusual talent, to which she – and I – have dedicated a great deal of time and effort to improving. If you wish to take up with a pretty singer, go back to England and find one with a dimmer future. Miss MacTaggert has no time to be your plaything._

 _Yours sincerely,_

 _O.G._

“I’m going to kill him,” Moira says a little dreamily. Reading it, she went hot, then cold, like someone had tossed her into a sauna then poured ice water down her back one after the other. “I mean it. Do you remember my father teaching me to shoot with his old Army pistol? You laughed at me, until he made _you_ try it, and you nearly killed a poor innocent pigeon that wasn’t anywhere near our target. I’ve still got the pistol. I’m going to go and get it and then I’m going to _kill him_.”

“I tried to shoot that pigeon _on purpose_ ,” Charles says sulkily, which is clearly a lie, “and – er – Moira, you’re scaring me a little.”

Moira sighs. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, you’re the mind reader. You know I don’t mean it _literally_.”

“My dear Moira, you’re quite frightening enough even when not literally murderous.”

She laughs. “Charles, have you _met_ some of my colleagues? Ororo calls down lightning-bolts, Alex shoots fire from his chest, and my stubborn-mindedness qualifies as frightening?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Charles says feelingly. “I take it you had nothing to do with this note, then.”

“Not at all. Although that doesn’t – I trust you still understand that I -”

“I just wish what you said and what you felt were the same,” Charles bursts out, as if unable to contain it.

That’s the outside of enough. “Charles. I like you. I do. You can’t help but know that. But you said yourself the other night: intentions are not actions. You shouldn’t help but know _that,_ either.”

“I,” Charles says, and Moira doesn’t need his talent or Irene’s to know what comes next. She puts her fingers to his lips. “Charles. Don’t.”

His lips move, warm and just a little moist, against the pads of her fingers, and Moira closes her eyes against the warm feeling it sends down her spine; she knows this, she’s not a blushing innocent and she can distinguish between lust and love.

 _It’s lust tangled up with old friendship and new companionship that’s such a damnable combination. But the Ghost was right – though I’ll slit my throat before I say it. I_ don’t _have time for this, nor any wish to be someone’s – fling, and even if Charles meant what he said the other night, marrying a_ former _opera singer is the outside of enough, marrying one who continues in her profession would be – well, it wouldn’t_.

She takes her hand away. “I have to go not commit a murder now. If you’ll excuse me.”

It’s a point of pride that she doesn’t _actually_ start running until she’s out of Charles’ direct sight. He’ll know anyway, of course, but Charles is an old hand at pretending not to know things, and Moira at pretending not to know what he knows.

*

Moira doesn’t have a key to Erik’s alley-way entrance and isn’t in a mood to stand at the little gate and yell. This means prying carefully at her mirror with one of Hank’s delicate repair tools until she catches the hidden latch – Erik made a number of excuses when she asked how it worked, so she’d contrived to drop an earring with the door half-open and got in Erik’s way when he tried to pick it up with his power, enough that she’d managed to find the mechanism. (And knock Erik clean off his feet, but that had been _entirely_ accidental, if amusing.)

Without Erik, she _does_ need the lantern she’d stashed behind her new dressing screen (the face Erik had made when he’d seen the screen confirmed every suspicion she’d ever had). By the time she makes it to the shore of the underground lake, she has worked herself up into a decent fury, one honed to a pulsing rage when she realises that the damned boat hasn’t an oar to be seen, and she’s stuck on this side.

“ERIK!” she yells at the top of her lungs. “ERIK, WE NEED TO TALK!”  

Silence, and the lap of dubiously-clean water on the shores of the lake.

“ERIK, DAMN YOU, I SAW THOSE NOTES!”

Something moving, on the far shore? Moira recalls a number of lurid tales about the inhabitants – animal and human - of New York’s sewer system, and squares her shoulders.

There _is_ something moving, but it’s not on the shore, it’s Erik, somehow _floating_ across the lake, as neat as Ororo on her winds or the beat of Angel’s wings. If Moira hadn’t been inured to the sight of people flying, she’d have gaped. As it is, she sets the lantern down, crosses her arms, and waits.

Erik looks smug enough when he lands that she realises her attempts to appear unimpressed must have been somewhat less than fully successful.

“You,” she begins heatedly to cover it, “are an arrogant, blundering, misguided -”

“What on earth brought _this_ on?”

“Your _damned_ notes!” The vulgarity catches his attention; he blinks, uncertain. “Bad enough that you’ve made me an enemy for life – Emma was in a taking like I’ve never seen – but that note to Charles, Erik, are you quite _mad_?”

“I heard Emma’s taking. With any luck she’ll swan back off to Europe and spare us all her dramatics.”

“You know she won’t! Besides which – I don’t even necessarily _disagree_ with what you said. Some of what you said. But you cannot install me by fiat, Erik, I deserve to _earn_ my place in this company!”

“You _have_ earned it.” Erik’s eyes are alight, his arms gesturing wide. “Ask Azazel, ask Armando or Janos – if you can get him to speak, outside his roles – ask any of your chorus or ballet. They’d have you over Emma in a _heartbeat_.”

“Because Emma is unbearable, not because of her voice!”

“Moira.” Erik takes her hand. He hasn’t done that since the first night; it silences her with its unfamiliarity. “You _have_ earned this, you do deserve it. I’m not going to pretend to total impartiality, but it’s true. Let me give you this.”

“And that ridiculous warning to Charles? What’s your explanation for that?”

His jaw tightens. “Xavier has no right to swan in and try and drag you away.”

Moira lays her other hand over Erik’s. “He hasn’t tried to drag me anywhere and he won’t. Unlike you, he isn’t under the bizarre notion that he owns me. Charles – Charles finds forcing anyone into anything...distasteful.”

She won’t explain why, even if Erik asks, but Moira knows that’s due to his stepfather and stepbrother – their casual, brutal use of force, against anyone they thought they could get away with, and thank _heavens_ Moira had never quite fallen into that category – and to Charles’ own power. He might not realise _she_ knows this, but she’s quite certain that, if he wanted, Charles could make her go with him gladly and never know the difference. He made everyone believe in Raven as his sister, after all.

It would frighten her, but it would be like being frightened of lightning (the regular sort, that is) or a volcano; nothing _she_ can do will make Charles be moral with his power, and all the evidence is that he has chosen to be, so she may as well be at peace with it.

“But why don’t you just tell him to leave?”

Erik is gripping her hand more tightly; his voice is full of frustration.

“He has business here, and I told you, he _is_ an old friend, and Raven’s brother. I refuse to believe that my choices are to forfeit all his company or fall into his arms. And you don’t have the right to send him away for me. In fact, if you try it again, I – I -”

She means to say she’d stop her lessons, but the words won’t come out; she won’t, she knows, any more than she can ask Charles to leave entirely.

 _Oh, I am a fool_.

“Moira,” Erik says, his voice gone soft and his eyes crinkling at the corners, and Moira is still waiting on his next words when he kisses her.

It isn’t at all like Charles’ kiss, that other night. Erik is direct where Charles was brief, opening her mouth under his before she has much time to think of it. Moira lets his hand go, one of hers going to his hair, fine auburn strands slipping through her fingers, the other to his back. He’s clutching her against him, now, tilting his head for a better angle, and Moira relishes the press of her body against him and thinks abstractly that the lakeshore is really a _terribly_ awkward place for this, barely enough room for the two of them to stand, let alone –

Then she’s suddenly alone again, Erik the full pace back the small area allows him, as if yanked away.

“Was it _that_ <.i> bad?” Moira demands irritably, feeling her hair falling from its pins. She’s allowed a little irritation. It’s hardly fair for Erik to – to practically attack her in a fit of passion and then _stop_.

“You...have practice. With the chorus. This afternoon.” Erik licks his lips; Moira eyes him wistfully.

“Not for another few hours. Oh, be reasonable, I’m not going to _throw_ myself on you, but you can’t do that and then expect -”

“I’ll see you for your lesson tomorrow,” Erik says hastily, and is gone across the lake.

Moira gapes after him as her hair tumbles down her shoulders.

 _Men_.

 **10.**

The next morning, Stanton announces – with a note of nervousness in his voice audible clear to the back of the auditorium – that Emma Frost will, after all, be playing Susanna. Moira is given Cherubino, with Angel, to her pleasure and surprise, playing Marcellina. Moira is half-surprised the theatre doesn’t shake down, but there’s not a creak of a seat, despite all the nervous eyes on the chandelier.

The chorus is all a-mutter and a-flutter, clustering protectively around Moira. On the way out, she passes Azazel and the new conductor, Logan, leaning against the wall backstage. They are smoking cigars, the combined odor foul and somehow sulphurous. Moira wonders what sort of tobacco smells like that, and why anyone would bother to smoke it.

“Miss MacTaggert,” Azazel summons her. From somewhere, he produces a score; Moira can guess what it is. “Ah, you know what this is. You’ll work on it, won’t you?”

“Do you really think -”

“Stanton’s not a bad manager, from what I can tell,” Logan drawls, “but he don’t have a _clue_ how to manage _this_ opera house. If he’s got any sense, he’ll light out for Philadelphia or Boston or even one of those fancy theatres back in Europe.”

“It’s not like the Ghost can _make_ anyone do anything?” Moira wishes that hadn’t come out as a question.

Azazel and Logan stare at her. Azazel snorts. “He can’t make _you_ do anything. Not the same thing.”

Moira looks at Susanna’s score and libretto. “We’re doomed.”

“Why d’you think we’re smoking?” Logan takes a drag on his cigar.

“Shouldn’t you be drinking?”

Logan pulls out a hip flask. “Got that covered, too.”

“I’m glad to see you’re organised,” Moira congratulates him, and bustles off to stew with the rest of the chorus. She might not technically be among them anymore, but it’s soothing.

*

She doesn’t see Charles for very nearly the entire length of rehearsals – he’s still in New York, she and Raven even go to one of his lectures at the university, and Moira surprises herself by understanding maybe half of what he says. Probably because he’d explained it at that ill-fated dinner, and Charles, for all his faults and casual arrogance, has always had the makings of an excellent teacher.

And maybe, for once, an excellent learner, too; Moira had made her position quite clear, after all, and she hadn’t considered – hadn’t thought to consider – that Charles might have been more serious than not, that his offer had been one of heart and hand both. She hopes she was wrong, and it’s just tactfulness keeping him away, or perhaps the realisation that she isn’t to be casually wooed. The thought that she might have truly hurt him is too painful to bear much consideration.

She will let it be, for now. He has promised to attend the new opera’s opening night. That will have to suffice. Moira can’t have Charles in the way he offered, but she finds herself surprisingly loath to relinquish his friendship as well, now their camaraderie of old has been re-established.

Shaw is quite another matter; the man has taking to lurking around the opera house rather menacingly. He still smiles far too often, and there is something hard and uncompromising behind his eyes that makes Moira feel like a cornered cat, hair all standing on its ends. As Emma has her leading role, however, he seems disinclined to chastise Moira about her sudden rise – but he has taken to asking a lot of rather pointed questions about the Opera Ghost, questions she has no intention of answering. So far, he hasn’t brought in Emma to help answer them. That would be – that would be –

\- well, she may end up running back to Charles to ask for his help after all, and she could barely stand that. But she’ll swallow her pride if she has to.

“What _do_ you know about the Opera Ghost, my dear?” Shaw asks her, cornering her in the foyer, the corridors, just off-stage. She wishes he wouldn’t call her that; it reminds her of Erik doing it, of Charles, their tone utterly different from Shaw, eerily similar to each other.

“Nothing more than anyone else,” she tells him, eyes downcast. “They say he’s not human, you know, that he helped build the opera house and died in -”

“I didn’t ask for rumour and, ah, ghost stories,” Shaw interrupts, hard-eyed. “I asked what you _know_.”

“Sometimes the chandelier rattles and the seats all shake; he leaves notes telling us what we’re doing wrong and what parts people should be taking; Mr. Azazel thinks his judgment is -”

“I remember.” Shaw takes a menacing step closer. “If there’s something you’re not telling me -”

“Moira!” Hank’s voice booms from the shadows. “Angel’s looking for you. Marie needs to talk to you about your costume, and she’s getting a bit short-tempered.”

Marie is from somewhere down south, and she can berate you up one side and down the other without losing a speck of her charm. She can also suck the life and power from you with a touch, or at least that’s what Jean said Ororo told her she overheard Logan saying to Azazel. The gloves she wears, indoors and out, make that likely enough. Moira’s not inclined to upset her.

Shaw glowers. She wishes, almost bitterly, they could set Marie on _him_.

“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Shaw, I can’t keep Marie waiting,” Moira says brightly, and makes her escape. High above, among the ropes and catwalks, she sees Hank’s golden eyes gleaming; he gives her a wink and a nod.

*

Marie only needs her for a little fitting and pinning – Moira barely even notices what she’s putting on, too busy fuming about Shaw and the whole silly business that her life has become.

 _I wish everyone wasn’t just so – or I could make up my mind to – but what more do I need to_ do _, take out an advertisement in the Sunday papers?_

Charles seems to have heeded her words. That’s a start. Shaw she can’t do anything about. Emma – perhaps has a right to be angry, which would be more tolerable if she didn’t spend so much time being angry at _Moira_. Erik – Erik, Moira decides, is the one thing she can do something about. He has been politely and icily professional for the past weeks, even returning occasionally to lessons delivered from behind her mirror – as if that makes any difference – but when he forgets to be distant, he’s merely awkward.

Moira does wish the man would make up his mind. Seeing as he’s shown no sign of it, she’ll just have to make it up for him.

She fishes the bottle of wine out of the basket in her dressing room she has mentally labelled Things People Have Given Me I Don’t Know What To Do With. Her apparent indifference to bouquets has inspired some of the young men – apparently undeterred by Charles’ presence – to try other things. At least the chocolates are useful for bribing her colleagues. Raven usually makes off with the alcohol. She’s a little surprised this is still here.

The corkscrew is courtesy of Raven, who eyes her dubiously. “I hope you’re not going to go off and seduce my brother with that, because while you’ve got absolutely the right idea about Charles’ virtue or lack thereof, I can’t endorse it. You’ll just give him ideas.”

“I’m not going to seduce Charles, Raven. Or _anyone_. I promise.”

“I wasn’t asking you to swear to celibacy, just to swear off my brother.”

The lesson goes well enough, though Erik directs her to stand by the fireplace, as far from his place at the piano as is reasonable. Moira wonders whether he thinks that she is going to throw herself on _him_ , or does not trust himself around _her_.

“Have I been stinting on bathing, recently?” she asks when they’re done.

Erik blinks. “What?”

“Or have I suddenly developed some power that makes it dangerous to come near me? Have you caught some mysterious illness you don’t want to pass on?”

Erik, to his credit, only looks a _little_ guilty. Moira sighs, and perches on the edge of the armchair.

“Erik, you’ve been avoiding me as much as humanly possible for – some time now. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to tell me _why_.”

“I was under the impression you were still in a taking about those notes.”

“I am. Well, I was. Charles has been avoiding me too, if it makes you feel better.”

“You went to that lecture of his.”

“With Raven, and – Erik, were you _following us_?”

Moira has never seen someone look so shifty. “Not...exactly.”

She has a sudden and profound desire to bang her head against something. “Don’t. Please. I was _with Raven_.”

“You never know what might happen in this city.”

“You’ve never seen Raven kick someone in the face.”

“Actually, I have. It’s a memorable sight.”

“Quite.” Moira fetches her satchel, and rustles around in it. “Were you planning to do anything, right now?”

Erik tilts his head, inquiringly. “Oh, Stanton’s in need of another note about the orchestra. The timpani are abominably out of tune. And it’s been some time since I haunted Azazel. The poor man might be feeling neglected.”

“You’ll probably find him smoking out back with Logan. They’ve struck up a great friendship.”

“Based on _what_?”

“Cynicism and hard liquor.”

“A potent combination.”

Moira produces the wine. “Someone left this for me after the fete, and Raven never got around to stealing it.”

“I,” Erik says, as if a bottle of wine renders her suddenly strange and unknowable.

“I _do_ hope you have glasses,” Moira says, and smiles her best I-am-charming-and-harmless smile.

It would probably be more effective if she didn’t know she’d picked it up off Charles.

*

Half a glass of wine loosens Erik considerably; he shifts slowly across the room, leaning casually on various pieces of furniture, until he’s sitting next to her on the rug in front of the fireplace. They talk of nothing important, the spread of the new electric lights, a report Erik read about new devices that will record sound and play it back, though they are as yet still being perfected.

“It will never replace the theatre, though,” Moira objects. “You may say the music is everything, but there’s more to what we do than just sound. Else I wouldn’t have spent so much time having Marie stick pins in me this afternoon.”

“Maybe not, but how many people would listen to the music who do not care to come to the theatre? I’d love to get my hands on one of these _phonographs_.”

“You just like tinkering with metal.” It’s true enough; the room is full of the results.

“I won’t deny that.” The flickering light of the fire heightens the shadows under Erik’s cheekbones and the proud profile of his face, brings out the copper hints in his hair. His eyes, in this light, look very green.

“You’re staring.”

“I’m not.” Moira buries her face in her cup. She was, and she knows it. When she looks back up, Erik is still looking at her; he’s got that same soft look in his eyes, the one from just before – “Now _you’re_ staring.”

“Guilty as charged.” He doesn’t look away.

It sends a shiver down her spine, the pleasant sort, radiating out along her limbs; she’s warm from the fire, from the wine, from Erik’s regard. It feels like an age like Moira did anything just because she _wanted_ to, of her own volition rather than reacting to someone else’s actions – Erik’s, Charles’, Emma’s, Shaw’s, it hardly matters any more.

It’s easy to kneel up, her skirts pooling around her, and kiss him.

It starts off softly, Erik barely moving, his mouth cool and still against hers, but when she tries to pull back, he brings up a hand to cup her face, and kisses back with emphasis. Moira doesn’t dare speak, or stop; she feels like any hesitation will send the whole thing crashing down to reality, and that’s the last place she wants to be.

It becomes slowly more heated, as Moira kisses her way slowly down Erik’s neck to mouth at his collarbone through the cambric of his shirt, and his hand finds its way above her knee, fingers stroking carefully at the soft skin of her inner thigh. She’s practically straddling Erik, now, knees to either side of his thighs, and she doesn’t want to stop _touching_ ; the sweet sting of arousal from his earlier look has fanned out into fire creeping along her veins, and if he tries to stop now, she really _is_ going to kill him.

“Moira,” Erik mumbles at her ear, tongue sweeping her earlobe. It sounds drugged. “Moira, I think -”

“I think,” Moira says as firmly as she can manage, which with his hand now dancing along the very top of her thigh, is not very firmly at all, “you should help me with my corsets.”

“Right, yes,” Erik breathes, and Moira has to bite her lip at the surge of pleasure hearing that gives her.

She’s down to her shift and Erik to his trousers before she can think enough to remember that Erik actually has a _bed_ somewhere here, probably a much more comfortable one than this rug, but Erik has his mouth on her breast, and she’s arching up into it. She’s not sure exactly what sound she’s making, but it’s probably embarrassing.

“God, _Moira_.” Erik sounds a little broken as he kisses back up towards her mouth, the slick slide of his tongue against hers an impetus for Moira to move her hand from his hip, further in; he hisses as she brushes his cock, hard and leaking a little, hisses again as she gets as much of her hand around it as she can manage with his trousers still on and strokes.

“You need to stop that,” he grits out.

“ _You_ need to take those off, then.”

He strips out of them gratifyingly fast; Moira takes the opportunity to rid herself of her shift. It’s frankly a wonder they haven’t tossed any of their clothing in the fire. Erik was a little reluctant to remove his shirt, a fact explicable once he got it off and Moira saw the scars that decorate his torso; some are careless, some chillingly deliberate. She’d run her hands across them, ragged and straight, and felt the fast beat of his heart under her fingertips. She doesn’t care about Erik’s scars; he’s here now.

She hooks a leg around his hip, presses up against him. He slides sweetly against her wet folds, and they’re both breathing hard.

“Erik,” she murmurs. “Do you know, I think I’ve been wanting to do this for _months_.”

“You could have _said_ ,” he mutters, and it’s only a matter of a little rearrangement for him to sink into her, a delicious thrust that curls her toes and has her clutching at his shoulders.

“Mmmm. Keep doing that.”

They set a lazy rhythm, revelling in each slow thrust, until one of them can’t take it any more – Moira’s not quite sure who – and Erik’s pounding into her, too hard for Moira to do anything but hold on until pleasure overtakes her in a low, bright burst that pulses leisurely in aftershocks until well after Erik has stiffened, muffling his own climax in her shoulder.

She’s going to have a bruise there, Moira thinks, and likely rug burn, and they’re both sweaty and sticky. Erik collapses beside her. She feels _wonderful_.

She turns her head; Erik is caught somewhere between satiety and smugness. It really shouldn’t be such a good look on him.

“This is still a bad idea,” he says drowsily, running a long finger down her cheek.

“You have no idea what I’d have done if you’d said that _during_.”

“Hence why I didn’t.”

“Do you really think -” Moira pillows her chin on her folded arms. “Do you really think I can’t _ever_ have a, a personal life, if I’m to try and make something of myself of a singer? That even this is too much?”

Erik frowns. “I think – I think it makes it harder.”

“I’m not afraid of hard work. I’m far more afraid of being successful, and unhappy.”

“Also, I may have been a little jealous,” Erik admits.

Moira makes an unladylike noise. “A little. _Hah_. Will you at least stop that _now_?”

“I’ll think about it.” Erik doesn’t sound particularly repentant. Well, she knew about the possessiveness. And the obsession. She’ll just have to work with them.

She wonders what this would have been like with Charles. She always imagined that anything like this, with Charles, would involve laughter.

Then she wonders why she’s thinking about Charles at all.

“You need rest,” Erik says eventually. “Your role is going to be demanding, in this production.”

“Cherubino? I hardly think so. A great deal of slapstick.”

Erik says nothing, but his eyes glitter.

“Do I _want_ to know what you’ve got planned?” Moira asks after a moment.

“Probably not.”

“No-one’s going to be hurt, are they?”

“Only in the ego.”

“I still don’t want to know.”

“For the best.”

“Does it ever occur to you that you could do so much _more_ than, than hide away in the basement of an opera house and play tricks on the company?”

“I have my reasons.” Erik’s voice is final.

“As you say.” This isn’t the time to pry.

They lie there a little longer, warm and content, hands laced together.

Later, Moira thinks it’s the last time she’s really happy before everything goes wrong.

 **11.**

Charles reappears the morning of the day they are to open, as pleased with himself as ever. “Moira! It feels like it’s been forever. How have rehearsals been going?”

“Very well,” Moira says, and tries as hard as she can not to think about the rug in front of the fireplace, two nights back. Judging by the faint crease appearing in Charles’ forehead, she may not be entirely successful. “But I really must be getting on with things, something always goes wrong the morning before we open. Are you coming tonight?”

“Ah. Yes. Did you know that you were almost entirely sold out?”

Moira feels a cold line marching down her spine. “We were?”

“All except for Box Five.” Charles smiles guilelessly. “Luckily for me, it turns out that even Box Five is available if you make a large enough donation to the theatre.”

“ _Charles,”_ is all Moira can say. There’s no telling what Erik will do.

“In fact,” Charles continues blithely. “I have to say I’m sort of hoping your Ghost will pop along. We could have a nice chat. It’s amazing, this opera, you know. So many people, so many powers. I feel like I’ve been looking for it all my life. And then there’s your Ghost, right at the centre of it. _Responsible_ for it, if I’m not much mistaken. I think we’d have a lot to talk about.”

Moira meant it, long ago, when she told Erik he’d like Charles. But Charles doesn’t – Charles isn’t – she has a sudden horrible premonition this can end in nothing but disaster.

Charles has that faint set to his jaw, though, that means he will not be dissuaded, despite her fears. She remembers it well from the time he broke his arm. The first time, that was.

“Then I’ll be glad to see you there,” Moira manages.

“Good – oh, wait, that’s wrong, isn’t it? What do you tell people, before performances?”

“Break a leg.”

“Then break a leg, Moira,” Charles tells her, gently. “And – I am glad you’re happy, you know.”

Moira goes crimson right to her hairline, and flees. She can’t face Charles looking at her and knowing that – seeing – she just _can’t_.

*

After that, nothing seems to go quite right. Kitty knocks over a bench in the ballet dressing room and seven pairs of slippers go flying all across the room; Moira turns awkwardly and smacks her shoulder into the doorframe of the dormitory room, giving herself a fine bruise; instruments won’t tune, people hurry in late or tipsy.

“I knew the dress rehearsal went too well,” says Ororo gloomily. “Tonight’s going to be a -”

“Don’t _say_ it,” Jean hisses. She puts a hand to her temple. “Everyone’s in such a terrible mood already, it’s giving me a headache.”

“Go and lie down while you still can,” Moira urges her. “You know crowds only make it worse, and we’re sold out tonight.”

“Being on stage isn’t so bad,” Jean admits, “at least if they like the performance. But there’s no time for lying about.” There is a faint line of tension on her forehead.

Moira wonders what else can possibly go wrong.

*

By the time they’re ready for the overture, Moira is wishing for nothing more than the night to be over. The orchestra, at least, is doing well enough – she overheard a few of Logan’s more _creative_ threats if the players didn’t, as he put it, “stop moping around like a pack of superstitious penguins”, and they would convince anyone to play their best.

But as soon as Armando and Emma take the stage, it becomes clear that something is terribly awry. Armando is in his usual good form – though it’s less usual for him to be singing bass – but when Emma opens her mouth, not a note comes out.

There’s a dead silence, and Logan frantically signals the orchestra to begin Act One again.

The same thing happens. Emma is clearly singing – Moira, in the wings, can see the movement of her jaw and throat, the deep breaths she takes – but it is as if she is singing into a void, or some evil spell has been cast; nothing can be heard.

As the orchestra trails off uncertainly, the audience – horrifyingly – can be heard beginning to titter. Moira claps her hands to her mouth, aghast. The idea of being laughed at is any performer’s worst nightmare, and to see it happen – even to Emma – is not something Moira ever wanted.

There is a brief moment of confusion, and then Sean, sensibly, brings the curtain down. It’s the only thing to be done.

Azazel darts out onto the stage, as much as someone of his size can be said to dart. “Just _what_ is going on here?”

“I don’t know.” Armando scratches his head. “Everything else seems to be fine, but – I can’t hear Emma.”

“It’s _her,_ ” Emma hisses, pointing straight at Moira, in the wings. “She’s doing something – she must be -”

“Miss Frost, that just doesn’t seem reasonable,” Stanton protests, trailing on behind Azazel.

“Nothing is _reasonable_ around here!” Emma retorts.

Moira’s head hurts, like someone has taken an ice pick and stabbed her right between her eyes; she tries to think of the pond, calm, blue, featureless, but it’s no good –

The pain vanishes, as quickly as it appeared.

Emma is glowering at her, narrow-eyed. Moira doesn’t need two guesses as to where that came from. A pity for Emma she really _doesn’t_ know what’s going on.

 Azazel and Stanton are conferring in low, frantic voices; it takes them only moments to come to a conclusion. Moira will go on as Susanna.

Emma hasn’t waited to hear it; she’s sweeping off-stage already, evidently deciding that retreat in high dudgeon is the preferable option. Beyond the curtain, Moira can hear the chatter of the audience.

 _Is everything all right?_  Charles asks.

Moira very nearly jumps. _Charles! Yes. Everything’s fine._

She wonders how much of the performance he’s going to see from Box Five.

 _Oh, good. And I intend to see the whole thing. This really doesn’t seem different from any of the other boxes. Moira, are you blocking me?_

Azazel is talking to her, she realises; telling her she has to go on as Susanna. She nods, and dashes to get changed.

 _No. Now I’m_ working _,_ _Charles, relax and enjoy the opera_.

She will, however, have to get him to teach her _better_ shielding, if he’s amenable. She doesn’t trust Emma not to rummage around in her skull, now she’s suffered public humiliation.

Sean gives her a grin. Moira would wonder what he’s looking so pleased about, but there’s no time.

They begin again.

*

Moira half-expects her own voice to be mysteriously kept silent, but her first note comes out clear and strong, and she doesn’t have time to worry about it; _Figaro_ is a complex opera, short on long arias and long on quick interchange between multiple singers. It’s not the type where you can let your mind drift until the soloist finishes; you have to pay constant attention.

They’re all just starting to relax into the farce, the crossing and double-crossing and people hiding in wardrobes, when there’s a muffled yell from – _above_ the stage?

It’s punctuated by a dull _thud_ of something very heavy falling to the stage. Moira thinks at first it’s a sandbag, like that rehearsal before the fete, but no; it’s something larger, with dull, dark colours, a sack or a piece of scenery fallen or...or...

It’s a body.

There is a muffled screech from offstage. (Moira finds out later that Jean, with superb presence of mind, muffled Sean before he could deafen all of them.)

The orchestra has trailed off, the stage is held silent; it’s eerie, until Alison shrieks “He’s _dead!_ ” and then it’s just mayhem as everyone tries to get offstage all at once. For the second time that evening, the curtain is quickly and unexpectedly lowered.

Moira is a doctor’s daughter, and she’s seen death before, though rarely someone who has clearly died by violence. Whoever this man is, it wasn’t the fall that killed him; she kneels next to the body. There’s a spreading pool of blood on the stage, and something dark and metallic sticking obscenely out of his torso, right through – or very close to – the heart.

It’s not a knife, or a dagger, or any sort of weapon. It looks – blunt, unfinished.

Moira only knows one person with the ability to move metal at his whim, with enough force to do this sort of damage.

She looks up to see Hank striding towards her; it’s so rare to see him in the light, these days, but his wide blue-furred face shows nothing but concern. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“What _happened_?”

“I don’t know!” Hank throws up his hands. “He wasn’t there at the start of the night, and then he was, and I tripped over him, knocked him right off the catwalk.”

“It wasn’t the fall that killed him,” Moira says with some assurance.

“He smelt dead,” Hank says quietly. “Do you know who he is?”

Moira shakes her head. “No. You?”

“He looks familiar. I couldn’t say for sure.” Hank hesitates. “Do you think...Moira...do you think this was...”

She has seen dead bodies before, but this time, Moira is struck by sudden and violent nausea. “I don’t – Hank, I have to go.”

She pushes past Azazel, and Stanton, and others; she needs to not be here. The Opera House seems suddenly oppressive, closing in around her. Erik could be anywhere, could be right behind her; she should _want_ to talk to him, to ask him what happened, but there’s blood on her skirts and a dead man’s staring eyes in her mind and she needs to be out of here, out, out, _out_.

It’s not until she pushes open the door and takes a great lungful of smoky, winter-cold night air that she realises she’s on the roof.

*

It’s a few minutes before she works out why; at first, all she can do is collapse weak-kneed onto the nearest ledge, head in her hands.

 _Breathe. Breathe. Calm_ down.

Erik knows everything that goes on in this opera house, but he never made reference to her lunch with Charles on the roof, nor anything they said there – and he would have, if he’d known. Erik _doesn’t_ know what happens on the roof, unless he comes here in person.

She feels sure he will, though, queerly certain that if he means to explain this to anyone it will be her. She should go. To her dressing room, even down the passage to the underground lake, _demand_ an explanation, let it be clear she won’t be –

\- but what does she know of Erik, really? They’ve talked, to be sure, of everything and anything, but she knows almost as little of him and his life before the opera house as she does of – of blacksmithing. (Perhaps less; she’s seen blacksmiths at their work.) He has avoided the subject almost entirely.

For all she knows he’s a murderer, or worse, and that’s why he hides down there. It hadn’t seemed – likely. It hadn’t seemed _possible_.

Now she isn’t sure what to think.

She expects Erik, but it’s Charles who finds her, just as she’s starting to think it’s foolish standing out here any longer, alone and cold.

 _Moira. Goodness, have you been out here all this time?_

He pushes open the door.

“Yes.” She’s shivering, she realises. “I just needed to get – out.”

“You think your Ghost killed that man.”

“Do you?”

“It seems – likely. But don’t you want to know _why_?”

“Does it matter? Murder is – I can’t condone that.” Moira looks up. “I hate the way the smoke and the light obscure the stars, here. Do you remember when we’d used to lie out in the field by the pond, on summer nights, and trace out all the constellations? The last summer in the country? You’d tell the Greek myths, and then Raven would make up stories about the ones _she_ saw, and we’d wonder what they looked like from the southern hemisphere. I miss that.”

“Do you know why we were lying out in the field, Moira?” Charles steps closer. His blue eyes are very serious, and harder than she’s seen them. “Because I was too tired to keep changing Cain and Kurt’s minds any more. Because when I couldn’t, they’d hit me, or Cain would – Raven was _twelve_ , I think, or at least she _looked_ twelve, and I had to worry about keeping her safe.”

It’s maybe the second or third time in her _life_ Moira has heard him talk voluntarily about his stepfather and stepbrother. “I don’t understand what that has to do with anything.”

“You’re shivering. Here.” Charles drapes his jacket around her; Moira would demur, but she _is_ cold, and tired. “Did Raven tell you what happened to Cain and Kurt?”

“She – implied – you’d made them go away.”

Charles smiles bitterly, ducks his head. “Raven is – and I’m not sure if it’s a flaw, or a gift – an exceptionally good liar, when she wants to be. I killed Kurt.”

Moira – doesn’t know what to say. “But – I can guess _why_. No, I can’t. Why?”

“It was an accident.” Charles shrugs. “I was still – finding the limits of my power. I told Kurt to _stop_ , you see. And he did. Cain departed very quickly, after that.”

“Your point is,” Moira says slowly, clutching the jacket more firmly around her, “that I should not be so quick to condemn.”

“My point is you may not be in possession of all the facts.”

“Why are you arguing _for_ him?”

Charles looks uncomfortable. “It – has not passed my attention – it couldn’t – that you’re rather hopelessly in love with him.”

Moira has never put it quite like that, in the silence of her head or aloud. “You seemed to think, not so long ago, that I felt that way about _you_.”

“I wouldn’t have said _hopelessly_.” Charles looks wry. “But – those aren’t mutually exclusive concepts.”

Nice girls, Moira knows, are not in love with more than one man, hopelessly or otherwise.

She supposes she never had much hope of being a nice girl.

“So I should go back in there and start demanding answers?”

“Is that what you want?”

“Can’t you just _tell_ me what I want?” She tries not to sound bitter, or angry. “Or make me want what you think is best. You could do that, couldn’t you?”

Charles just sounds weary. “No. Moira – no.”

“I don’t know what to _do_ ,” Moira chokes out, and she is horrified to discover that it is choked because she is about to cry.

It’s only a step and a moment for Charles to put his arms around her. Moira dislikes crying, and in particular dislikes crying in front of others, but she can feel the careful distance of Charles’ mind, wrapped around her as truly as his arms, and for a little while she doesn’t do anything but let out muffled, wrenching sobs into his shoulder.

“I need to go back down,” she says eventually, when she’s cried herself out. “If nothing else – I need to find out what’s happening.”

“They’ve cancelled the performance for the evening,” Charles replies promptly. “Obviously. And – hmmm.” He’s rummaging in _someone’s_ mind, Moira can tell. “They want to call off performances for the foreseeable future. In poor taste, you understand.”

“I just want,” Moira says, pulling away – she can’t let herself be reliant on Charles, she just can’t – “I need to be away from here.”

“I think I can arrange that.”

Moira tries to think of options, contacts. Nearly everyone she knows here is at the opera house. Except for Irene.

“Let me help you,” Charles interrupts her train of thought. “Moira, even if you think I’m just going to sail off back to England and – what was it – marry a nice girl and have a dozen babies – you’re my friend. You’re my _oldest_ friend.”

“I was your _only_ friend.”

“That might be truer still than you think.”

“Charles – don’t.”

“Not everyone is as tolerant and understanding as you, you know.”

“Your flattery is obvious, I’ll have you know.”

 _That’s a very cheap piece of flattery_ , Erik’s voice echoes in her mind, amused and a little condescending. She finds it hard to connect that voice with _murder_.

She should go down and face him. But she can’t.

“All right,” she says finally. “What was it you had in mind?”

 **12.**

The opera will close for two weeks, while the murder is investigated, to – Stanton says – allow everyone to gather their shattered nerves. Moira’s nerves do not feel shattered so much as frayed. She returns to pack her things, but there is not a whisper from Erik, not even a prickle on the back of her neck. She isn’t sure what to think of that. What she thinks of that.

Moira knew Sharon Xavier had been American by birth, but she _hadn’t_ known that her inheritance had included a grandiose mansion north of New York. Charles’ solution is two weeks’ sojourn there, while Moira has no other commitments. Moira is aware of the rumours this will cause, but can’t find it in herself to care. Raven is coming, too.

“I can’t leave you alone with him, don’t be ridiculous,” Raven says, _him_ meaning Charles, but her eyes are dark with concern. 

*

At night, in Westchester, Moira dreams of Erik. It’s never the same dream twice; sometimes it’s mundane, music and lessons. Sometimes she dreams of that night in front of the fire, and wakes up in a sweat. Those nights are – difficult. Some nights she dreams of the dead man, of Erik lifting his hand to send whatever it had been flying into his chest, a slight smile on his face. Those nights she wakes up in a _cold_ sweat, and doesn’t sleep again.

“Do you want me to do something about your dreams?” Charles asks her directly over breakfast, a few days in. The circles under her eyes are visible to anyone who’s not half-blind, but Moira knows that isn’t why Charles is asking.

The weak sun of early spring – still winter, really – is pouring in the windows, shattering on the glass and silver set neatly on the table, chasing away the shadows of the night. Raven is still abed, announcing that if she’s going to take a holiday she may as well keep civilised hours. Moira suspects that Charles’ wakefulness is a direct result of hers. He never did like mornings, as a child.

“Am I waking you up?”

“You wouldn’t be if I wasn’t keeping an ear out anyway. Don’t trouble yourself.”

“Is that what it’s like, hearing dreams? Keeping an ear out?” Moira cradles her teacup, staring moodily into it. If it holds any answers, she can’t see them.

“It’s – the best explanation I can give. The English language isn’t really _designed_ to talk about what I do, some days.”

“Mmmm.” Moira takes a sip of tea, remembers strong black coffee, and banter over breakfast. Puts the memory away again. “It’s like trying to describe that – that _thing_ Alex does with – Hank’s terribly insistent it’s not _fire_ , and besides we know what that looks like, one of the clarinets plays with it on a regular basis, it’s a wonder he hasn’t burned the place down – but it burns things, all the same.”

“What makes the sun burn?” Charles asks rhetorically. “Maybe it’s the stuff of stars. Give it a decade or two, and science will unravel some of these mysteries for us.”

“Only a few?”

“One can’t do _everything_ all at once. And judging by a few of my conversations with your colleagues, wild horses couldn’t drag most of them into a laboratory.”

“You don’t have to be afraid.” Moira gestures at the table, at the room. “You have wealth, influence, _power_ – and I don’t mean the power of your mind. No-one will burn your house, because they’ve heard you sacrifice children to your god. No-one will refuse you a say in things, because they think your sex makes you weak or feeble-minded. No-one will call you a freak, or a monstrosity, or put you in a laboratory and dissect you. Charles, you’ve never had to live your life in -”

“- fear?” he finishes. “In comparison, no. No, I suppose no-one would call it that.”

That’s as close as Charles has been to being unkind, these last few days. Moira meets his eyes, even so. “I don’t mean to make a competition of it. Your hurts are your own, and gain no worth by being measured against someone else’s. But you understand why everyone at the opera house might have reason to hide.”

“They shouldn’t have to.”

“You’d have to change the world, to change that.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m still young, isn’t it?” Charles grins, dazzling. That’s the trouble. Anyone would believe him. _He_ believes himself.

Moira is half-certain it’s a good thing Charles is just one man, even with all his power. _Two_ of him, and – and the world would have to change. It wouldn’t be given a choice.

“I think I’ll stick to opera,” she says aloud. “Less melodramatic.”

Charles sputters into his teacup.

*

Life at the opera does not give Moira a _great_ deal of time to read, a pastime she has some fondness for, so she is content that afternoon to curl up in the conservatory with a novel. One cannot, after all, survive exclusively on scores and libretti (or books about composers, or histories of opera, and so on and so forth.) Her chosen novel may not be particularly _improving_ , but her discussion with Charles on science – and the reasons he is unlikely to get very far with scientific inquiry into his _mutations_ , unless he proceeds with a degree of caution and sensitivity the Charles she knew as a girl did not dream of possessing – brought it to mind. It had been lying next to _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ , in an apparent act of genealogical filing. Moira appreciated the treatise, but was hardly in the mood for it. She did wonder at finding it here – Lady Xavier had never evidenced the slightest indication of education beyond that considered appropriate for women of good birth.

 _I see you found the library._

Moira looks up as Charles pokes his head around the doorframe. “What I could make of it through the dustcovers, yes. I stirred up enough dust for a pharaoh’s tomb when I opened the curtains - the place is a veritable fire hazard. You really should have someone go through this place.”

“I should. There’s barely been a skeleton staff here since my grandparents died, and that was – oh, before I met you, I should think.”

“You could rent it out,” Moira adds. “I’m sure plenty of families would want to summer here.”

“I could, yes,” Charles agrees mildly.

“That’s not what you were thinking.”

“If I were to stay in New York...”

Moira’s hands still halfway through turning a page; she blinks. That’s unexpected.

“Why so?”

“You only came over here for Raven. And your lectures. Why would you stay?”

“Why would I go back to England?”

Moira looks at Charles, really looks, for the first time since – perhaps for the first time since he reappeared so unexpectedly in her life. He projects such charm, such confidence, that it’s hard to remember – or does he _let_ you remember? – the lonely boy he was.

“Your studies. Your home. Your – future, I suppose. All of it is there.”

“ _Is_ it?” Charles’ smile is twisted. He leans against the doorframe. “My past is there, certainly. The house I grew up in. But the only parts of my past I really give a damn about – if you will excuse the vulgarity – are you, and Raven. I came over here because I thought Raven might need me. But she doesn’t, of course. I knew it, I just didn’t want to admit it. And then there was you – and you, my God, Moira, you don’t need me even the slightest bit.”

“I needed you that night,” Moira says, because it’s true.

“But if I hadn’t been there, you would have picked yourself up and gone on.”

“It’s the only thing that works.” Moira remembers the days after her father’s death. It had been expected, after his illness, but she’d sat in the study of the house they were renting – the house she couldn’t afford to keep, now – and wondered, how do I do this? Where do I start? How do I go on, when everything is broken?

There was no secret to it, though, no prayer or higher power’s grace, or hadn’t been for Moira. You just went on. Life, somehow, kept happening.

“The thing is,” Charles says, coming into the room fully. Moira sits up, to make room, and he takes the other end of the chaise longue, elbows on his knees. “The thing is, it was a rather nice thought, thinking I might be needed. You were all by yourself, you had a mysterious Ghost interfering with your life -”

“I had an opera house full of people, and a bargain with my teacher.”

“Can I ask what it was?” Charles quirks an eyebrow.

“That he would teach me, and I would apply myself to singing. And nothing else.”

“Fair. But – harsh, perhaps.”

“It still seems fair.” You can’t be anything but honest, with Charles, but there’s the honesty he takes by his existence and the honesty you _give_ him, and Moira would give it to him. “I’d go back tomorrow, if I knew what to say. I’d go back for the music and – nothing else. It’s not nothing else, of course. You were – quite right, on that score. But I would go.”

Charles is looking at her, now, like _he_ is only seeing her for the first time, a grown woman, not the gawky girl he left behind. “Why do you do it, Moira? Music.”

Moira chooses her words carefully. “Because – because I’m good enough to _create_ something, the nights it all goes right, the nights we hit every note and even the nights we don’t, and what we create is beautiful. I want people to see it. If I can, I’ll do it all my life. Showing people something beautiful.”

She takes a breath. “And it’s a living, and there’s only so many of those for a respectable woman by herself, especially ones which let you teach when you’re done performing, and don’t make you _entirely_ of the demi-monde. I haven’t the patience to be a governess. I’ve been here long enough that I _know_ people, even if it all goes terribly wrong I can get some sort of recommendation, there are other opera houses and other companies. It’s practical. But mostly – it’s beautiful.”

Charles nods, slowly.

“What do _you_ want to do with your life, Charles?” she asks, testing the waters. “Because we both know you don’t have to do any work you don’t care for, if you wanted any, and I don’t see you in the Church, or the Army, besides you being an eldest son. What will you _do_ , with your studies? Teach? You’d do well. You have the knack.”

“What I want -” Charles frowns. “I want – I want to _know_. These gifts of ours. Mine, and Raven’s, and your Ghost’s, and everyone in your opera company. Where did they come from? Are they heritable? Is it chance, or destiny? Can we understand them? Can we _control_ them? What are our limits?”

“Do you _have_ any limits?”

“You don’t think I do. Your view of my power, as a force of nature – it’s flattering, I suppose, but, Moira, you do frighten me.”

“ _I_ frighten _you_?”

“You’re so terribly – _pragmatic_ about it all. I see the wonder. And the potential for disaster. But mostly the wonder. You just figure out how to – go on, with wonders all around you.”

“I could be afraid,” Moira says quietly. “I could refuse to believe, though I’d have to drive myself half-mad to do it. I could run away. But none of those would be very helpful, would they?”

“Afraid. People will be, won’t they? Of all of us. I’d like to think otherwise, but – I see all of the others, there, and they’re hiding, Moira, every one of them, behind costumes or walls or shadows. It’s only recently there’s been enough of us there for people to start to creep into the light. Either every one of your colleagues is paranoid beyond reason, or – they have reason. And, if you will forgive me, I know some of their stories. They have reasons. You were right, in what you said, at breakfast. It’s easy to name a price you might never have to pay.”

“I wish I knew Erik’s reasons. He’s never told me. I keep thinking, if he had, if I’d found some way to make him trust me, I might have just gone back, and – and I wouldn’t be sitting here, still trying to work out what to say to him.”

“Is that his name?” Charles tilts his head inquiringly.

Moira starts, but the damage is done. “Oh – _drat_. Yes. As if you didn’t have it from my head.”

“As a matter of fact, no. You’ve developed a curious regiment of mind, do you know that? You _know_ I can hear your surface thoughts, so you marshal them strictly into appropriate lines. It’s quite fascinating.”

“I thought it was Erik’s mind that was fascinating.”

“That, too,” Charles admits readily. “You have no idea – he has more power in him than any three of your colleagues together, except maybe Jean, but she’s buried hers so deep it might never come out. He could move mountains, and instead he pelts me with hairpins.”

“You sound frustrated.”

“I’ve just never – I never – someone with power like mine, not just a talent, Moira, the _scale_ of it, and he’s just out of reach. When you go into the walls, you know, it gets all fuzzy. Something about the ground, I think, it blocks my mind, once you’re deep enough. I don’t know exactly where he is and I’ve no particular desire to run around down in the dark.”

“Quite sensible. It might connect to the sewers.”

Charles makes a face. Moira has to laugh. “When – when I go back. Shall I see if I can make you an introduction?”

“ _Yes_. Er, that is to say, that would be -”

Moira swats him with her book. “Enough. I’ll be jealous.”

“Of which one of us?”

“That’s to be decided,” she teases, and is relieved when Charles’ eyes crinkle in a genuine smile.

“I’ve also been thinking – Moira – it was a tad ridiculous. The way I proposed to you. Almost proposed.”

“I think you did it out of reflex,” Moira agrees.

“May I take it back? You never did give me an answer. I believe I’m still allowed to take it back.”

“I don’t think that’s _quite_ how it works. But be my guest.”

“Because,” Charles adds hastily. “It’s not that I’m saying I’d _never_ want to marry you, Moira. But perhaps I should save proposing for when I’ve decided what _I’m_ going to do with my life. Let alone involving someone else in it.”

Moira looks at him, his lovely, earnest face, such a pretty cover for everything underneath – and there is so _much_ to Charles, not just the deep well of power, but the ugly and the beautiful too, all papered over with normality – and remembers being fourteen and thinking that if she _had_ to marry someone, she’d marry Charles.

She is twenty-four, and she does not have to marry anyone, ever, unless and until she wishes to. Charles’ face falls a little.

“What I mean by that is – I’m not saying I’d _never_ marry you. But there are so very many things that’s dependent upon – you know them all.”

“I know.” Charles pats her hand. “Thank you.”

She leans over, before she can think it through, kisses the corner of his mouth. “Thank you. For – understanding that not needing you isn’t not caring about you.”

“I’d be quite prepared to compromise with you wanting me,” Charles says, his voice going a little deeper than normal, and his hand is still on hers and their foreheads are nearly touching, and –

She swats him again with the book. “Don’t be _confusing_.”

“Oh, God,” Raven says loudly from the doorway. “Do I need to go away? Charles, are you trying to seduce Moira in the conservatory? There have to be twenty bedrooms in this place, and you choose the _conservatory_?”

“I’ve seen some of those twenty bedrooms,” Moira says darkly. “I wouldn’t be seduced by _anyone_ in them. The mice would eat us alive before we’d got our clothing off.”

“Good point.” Raven puts her hands on her hips. “Now either send my brother away or go find one of the ones _without_ mice.”

“Moira’s reading,” Charles says, standing up. “And I promise not to seduce anyone in the conservatory.”

“I am reading,” Moira agrees. “Before I was interrupted by Charles un-proposing to me. Would you be willing to accompany me later, Raven? I’ve been neglecting my practice dreadfully, this can’t go on.”

Raven acquiesces, and Charles follows her out of the room.

Moira feels – lighter, somehow, like she’s been standing in a cage facing the back wall, and all she needed to do was turn around to find the door.

 _Not that Charles is a cage. But the way he was thinking of me – that was. No. The person he was_ imagining _I was._

“By the way, Moira,” Charles peers back in. “I do have to ask – what happened to all that bit about propriety and scandal?”

Moira purses her lips. “Propriety is overrated.”

“Your subconscious certainly thinks so, going by those dreams.”

It’s Charles’ good fortune that he ducks back out before Moira can throw the book at him.

*

On the last night in Westchester, Moira asks Charles to help her with Emma.

“It’s not that she’s done it more than twice,” she explains, “and I think anything obvious would just make her more curious – but I can’t let her in too far. Can you help?”

“Help” turns out to be Charles instructing her to imagine a solid brick wall in her mind.

“Is that all?”

“I’m – oh, English again – shall we say I’m _reinforcing_ it with my power. It will last. Not against an outright attack, but for glancing blows, it should do.”

“Then I’ll have to be satisfied. Angel’s note said Emma wouldn’t be back for the masquerade, anyhow – apparently she and Shaw have gone on some trip down to the capital, some concert. We’ll all be happier for it.”

“Are you ready, to go back?”

“We’ll find out. I hope so. I think I know what I’m going to say. If Erik will see me at all, that is.”

“Of course he will,” Charles assures her immediately. “Anyone would.”

“You’re hardly impartial.”

“As your oldest friend, and the first person to _almost_ propose to you -”

“I hate to tell you, but you’re not the first to that honour by some years -”

“Nonsense. I’m sure everyone else proposed to you quite thoroughly. I’ll wager I’m the only person who muddled it up that way.”

“I’ll treasure the memory,” Moira promises solemnly.

The strains of a waltz for the piano are coming faintly from the next room; Raven, still idly playing now Moira’s practice is finished.

Charles holds out a hand. “Since it's our last night. Would you like to?”

Moira thinks about messages, and sending them, and how she’s given up on any sort of mental privacy with Charles around, at least privacy _from_ Charles, and how not needing him – and him knowing it – has turned out to be entirely more dangerous than any pretension that she might.

But she _wants_ to. She stands up. “I would.”

They are both confident dancers, and the room is large enough for the two of them to stand up together without any trouble – though it would be hard pressed with more than two or three couples. No unspoken questions, no mysteries; just the pair of them, and the steady beat of the piano, and the quiet of the night.

Moira closes her eyes, for a long moment, and they never miss a step.

 **13.**

The masquerade was Angel’s idea, taken up by the management: a show of celebration and calm, against the uneasy backdrop of a very public murder which showed no signs of being solvable. The consensus among the company is that it was the Ghost, but they are more complacent than Moira might have expected – the dead man was a stagehand, true, but he had appeared only the week before.

“I heard Shaw hired him,” said Hank.

“I saw him sniffing around where he wasn’t wanted,” Angel drawled darkly.

“Stands to reason, the Ghost’s never hurt any of _us_ ,” Ororo shrugs.

They are only confused as to why the Ghost would be so careless as to let the body be _discovered_ , and in the middle of a performance, too.

Moira knows that “us” doesn’t _necessarily_ mean Charles’ mutants – a good half the orchestra and quarter of the chorus are as boringly normal as you please, but still part and parcel of the company, and she hasn’t a clue about Janos, come to think of it – but it’s the tiniest bit disconcerting, all the same.

She means to go down to the lake before the masquerade begins, but is caught up in a whirlwind of dresses and masks as the chorus and ballet welcome her back and draw her into their plans for the evening; Raven means to go as her own blue self, since costumes and masks are the order of things.

“I’ve had three people ask me how I did the paint so well,” she explains, teeth shining whitely in a grin. “It’s _amazing_ what people don’t see, when they aren’t looking.”

“What are you going to tell them you are?”

“It’s much more fun to let them guess. Someone might come up with a good idea.”

Moira laughs. She’s only wearing her best dress – she has one or two fit for evening-wear, now – and a plain domino. “For myself, I just want us to be done with this.”

“Not feeling too good about being put on display for the whole city to see you haven’t been kidnapped or had hysterics? Don’t worry, we’ll protect you.” Raven gives her a quick, one-armed hug. “And I even promise not to mock you about my brother.”

“Seeing as your brother and I aren’t -”

“Mmmmhmm. Shall we go down, then?”

The masquerade is being held in the foyer on the second floor, beside the circle. Charles will be there, but Moira can’t make him out through all the other guests; the event is crowded, mostly with people she doesn’t know and probably doesn’t care for, who all nevertheless absolutely eager to ask her how she is and what she’s been doing and whether she’s really engaged to that lovely Englishman.

Moira says fine and resting and no, and Raven says “Not _yet_ ,” with a wink.

Moira grits her teeth and gives a polite, girlish giggle before she drags Raven away to _beat her over the head_ with whatever comes to hand.

“What do you think you’re _doing_?” she mutters as they take glasses of champagne. “I thought you were warning me _off_ Charles, not matchmaking me with him in front of half the city!”

Raven is unrepentant. “Well, yes. And then again – no-one’s asked you a thing about the Ghost, have they?”

Moira wonders how quickly she can get her hands on a second glass. This sort of thing was all so much easier when Emma was around, to play the diva and draw the eye, but Emma will not return for some weeks, and it is left to Moira to hold the fort.

Trust the woman to make her life as difficult as possible.

She smiles when she spots Charles, talking animatedly to someone in the corner. No, not talking – flirting, judging by the smile and the more deliberate movement of his hands. Charles in more cerebral excitement has a tendency to wild gesticulation. Moira can’t quite see who the object of his attentions is. She hopes it isn’t Angel again. Not that Charles is stupid enough to press where he’s not wanted, but Angel can be a _touch_ short-tempered about that sort of thing.

She begins to make her way towards him. The crowd shifts and parts again; it’s a _man_ Charles is talking to, and that’s – not what Moira had imagined, though he had been unusually understanding about Raven, and maybe it _is_ just academic enthusiasm, though she would have said his whole attitude was unmistakable –

\- but it’s not just a man, it’s _Erik_.

He is costumed, like most of the attendees tonight, face masked, even his hands gloved. Not anything like the mask he wore as the Opera Ghost; red and nearly garish, it makes Moira think of ravens, if not for any obvious reason.

Moira cannot see his face. Charles looks animated, happy; he would know if he were in any danger, surely; but her heart is beating very rapidly, and all the words she marshalled when she thought she could dictate the manner and time of her reunion with Erik have vanished like breath in the cold night air.

“Moira!” Charles says happily. “Moira, there you are. I’ve just been having the most fascinating conversation with your colleague. He is your colleague, I assume?”

“It’s a little hard to tell, in that get-up,” Moira responds, possibly more tartly than is warranted, but she _does_ hate being ambushed like this and there’s no way Charles can’t know it’s an ambush. The way he’s not _quite_ looking her in the eye tells her she’s right.

“You don’t like it?” Erik says, dry and amused. She wishes he sounded nervous. She would like to know they were on even footing, there.

“Red isn’t your colour, I think,” is the best Moira can manage.

Charles is watching them in that disarming way of his, where he tries to disappear from your view in order to better observe. Moira would wager, suddenly, that that was not an insignificant part of his thinking, in approaching Erik like this; he _would_ want to observe the pair of them. (Probably the rest was just...Charles being himself.)

Although – she wonders – “Do I owe you an introduction, then, Charles?”

“I think we’ve managed to introduce ourselves to each other quite creditably, though you did promise me one, if I recall.”

“ _Did_ you?” Erik’s eyes narrow, behind the mask.

“I think Charles felt he didn’t know very much about you.” Moira meets his eyes. “I wonder if I do.”

“And what is it that you think you know about me, Mr. Xavier?” Erik’s voice is crisp, almost edged. He has, Moira notes, avoided her question, oblique as it was.

“Oh,” Charles says offhandedly, but his eyes are – Moira can’t recall if she’s ever seen Charles look like that. “Everything.”

Moira knows, objectively, that the masquerade is swirling around them; the champagne in her hand is still cold, it has not been five minutes since she picked up the glass; but she feels as if the three of them are preserved in glass, entirely separate.

 _I may be – re-directing attention, a little_ ,  Charles says apologetically into her head. _I’m sure we’re all being very circumspect, but you look –_

 _You should see the look on_ your _face,_ she thinks.

“Well,” Charles says aloud, “I’m so glad we met, but, Moira, I really shouldn’t monopolise you any longer. You must have dozens of people you need to speak to.”

“Need, yes,” she agrees. “Erik. I’m sure we’ll see each other later.”

“I’m sure we will,” Erik says, and Moira is mostly certain it’s a promise, not – a promise, anyhow.

A step and a smile has her greeting several of the orchestra, and when she looks around again, Erik is gone, and Charles is chatting amiably with Logan, which is a feat in and of itself.

Moira can’t help feeling that she missed something, in that brief conversation. She’ll figure it out later, she supposes. Now she needs to be seen, and be seen to be happy and healthy, the opera’s newest leading lady.

(She’ll curse herself for not figuring it out immediately, later, but then again; she knows both men better than anyone else alive, then or now, but until that moment she’d never seen either of them fall in love in the space of five minutes.)

*

It’s easy enough for Moira to slip away from the party; it will be assumed that she’s gone to bed or that she’s left with Charles, either of which suits her purposes well enough. She can’t bring herself to care about what people might think of the latter, anymore.

She means to go to her dressing room, take the passage down to the lake, but is stopped by a hand on her shoulder half-way between the foyer and the stage. It takes some control not to jump, or not to jump very _much_ , but when she turns it’s only Erik, out of his costume, now, the Ghost’s mask in place. A wonder that she can think _only_ , after – but she never did think _she_ was in any danger. (Or that Charles would have the slightest notion of letting her wander off, if he thought she was. Not that she needs Charles’ interference. But he would.)

“I was coming to look for you,” Moira tells Erik. His hand is warm, on her shoulder; she reaches up to touch it, and it’s snatched away. She compresses her lips. “Unless you didn’t want to talk.”

“Whenever it suits you, of course,” Erik says.

They walk to her dressing room in silence – Moira doesn’t want to start this conversation in the corridor, not that she’s certain how to start it at all.

The gas-light in her dressing room, turned on low, reflects them both ghostly in the mirror; Moira wonders when she grew so pale, when Erik slipped back into the Ghost’s skin.

“I am glad to see you’ve returned,” Erik says, voice as smooth as ice if not quite as cold.

“I’m glad to be back,” Moira replies. They should go down, but – she isn’t sorry to have this out on her territory.  

“I did wonder _why_ you left for so long.” Erik folds his arms.

“A dead body dropping onto the stage would upset most people.”

“I had thought you made of stronger stuff than that.”

“Bodies, I can deal with. Questions about why they’re there and who caused them to be so are – less easily handled.” She wishes he didn’t have the damned mask on. It makes everything harder.

Erik raises an eyebrow – or so she thinks. “You could have asked.”

“But which question?”

“Is it the questions that concerned you, or the answers?”

“Perhaps the extent of what I didn’t know.”

“You should have asked.”

“I should have.”

She should have. She should have summoned her courage, then. But she hadn’t quite managed it, and it feels like that lack has opened a gulf between them she does not know how to bridge.

But she can try. She takes a deep breath.

“Will you tell me, then? What happened?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” Erik sounds suddenly uncertain, as if he really believes she’d rather wallow in doubt or pretend the whole thing had never happened than – _men_.

“ _Yes_.  Go on.” Moira sighs. “And _do_ take off that ridiculous mask, no-one’s going to come barging in here.”

The gulf feels a lot smaller when he does, and it’s not the Ghost she’s looking at, just Erik. The lines of his face seem sharper – he looks tired, older. Moira grips the edge of her table, suppresses the urge to touch him. It wouldn’t help, anyway.

“It was Shaw,” Erik begins.

“Who killed him?” Moira’s eyebrows shoot up. That seems –

“No. That was me. Though it’s not as unlikely as you’re thinking. Shaw’s killed a lot of people.”

 _Who did he kill_ , Moira wants to ask, _to put that look on your face_ , but it’s not the answer she’s seeking, not tonight. “Shaw sent someone to find you, didn’t he.”

“To dispose of me. The man wasn’t stupid, either – but Shaw doesn’t suspect what _actually_ goes on in this place.”

“What, opera?”

“The people _performing_ the opera.” Erik makes a small gesture, at himself, then outwards.

Moira nods, slowly. “Everyone and their – talents. But then, why would he? There can’t be very many who even realise the sort of things that – go on here, as you say, are possible, and not fairground trickery or children’s stories.”

“Oh, he knows.” Erik smiles, the too-wide one that is hardly a smile at all. “Shaw’s one of us. He has had – an interest, in finding people like us, in the past. But no, this is just coincidence, I think. He funds the opera because it helps him fit in to society here, and because of Emma Frost. He doesn’t know _I’m_ here.”

“Except – oh, you mean _you,_ yourself, Erik – do you know, I still don’t know your surname? But you. Not the Ghost. He just wanted to get rid of the Ghost. But haven’t you warned him, with that – piece of dramatics?”

A scowl crosses Erik’s face. “That was _not_ on purpose. Shaw’s man chased me, and I had to deal with him -”

“Kill him. You killed him.”

Erik meets her eye for eye. “Yes. I killed him on the catwalk, and I meant to take the body away as soon as I could, but – Hank came back, and knocked it off, and so. You can’t possibly think I meant to interrupt the performance like that, after I went to all that effort to get you on in your _proper_ role.”

“I _knew_ it!” Moira exclaims. “It was Sean, wasn’t it? Soundwaves. I thought about it, when I was away, and he did look ever so pleased with himself. He’d be more than happy to do as the Ghost told him, too.”

Erik grins, an easier expression than before. “Of course. I thought it was quite clever.”

Moira rolls her eyes. “Of course you did. And I didn’t think – of course I knew you wouldn’t interrupt the performance, you’re obsessive, not _mad_.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” Erik quirks an eyebrow.

“If you like. I suppose I don’t have cause to complain about it.” Moira sighs. “So. Shaw sent someone to dispose of you, you got in first. What if it happens again, then? What if someone _succeeds_? We can’t have that sort of thing going on and on, we have to _deal_ with it.”

“It’s not your problem.” Erik sets his jaw stubbornly.

“People dying in the opera house I’m trying to perform in is most certainly my problem, and besides, did it occur that you’re not alone in this?” It’s only a step to take his hand. “Because you aren’t. And you can’t afford to be, not with Emma being a mind-reader and Shaw doing who knows what besides owning the place. Let me help you.”

Erik disengages his hand. “I can’t – drag you down into this. I refuse to.”

“Why? Because I’m a woman? Because I can’t read minds, or bend metal, or throw lightning? It’s a little late to not want to _drag_ me into anything, Erik. I’m as enmeshed in this as I could possibly be.”

Erik runs a hand through his hair. “Because. Because you’re _good_ , Moira, as I told you you could be. You will be better. Opera singers have very long careers, and I am hardly the only person in the world who can teach you singing. Because you have this, now, but the world is hardly confined to this theatre or this company, and neither is your career. You will sing on a great many stages, my dear, and you don’t need me for that.”

“Yes. Yes I _do_ ,” Moira insists, blindly. She does. She does need him. “I do. Me. Not my career.”

Erik opens his mouth, and she plunges on, heedless. “And if you _dare_ say it was a mistake, I’ll – I’ll take a boat straight back to Orkney and marry a fisherman, I swear to God I will!”

He blinks. “I really can’t see you as a fishwife.”

“Try me.” She lifts her hand, touches his cheek; this late in the day, there is stubble against her fingertips. She can feel his pulse in this throat. His eyes, in this low light, are very green. Moira wonders why she left (but she can remember a dull thud and blood on her skirts, she knows why.)

Erik dips his head towards her, and –

The door rattles.

 **14.**

They leap away from each other with alacrity; Erik scrambles for his mask but it’s a fraction too late and Moira tries to think of explanations if –

\- Charles pokes his head in. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Don’t,” Moira says with feeling, “tell _obvious_ lies, Charles, you knew perfectly well you were interrupting.”

“Xavier,” Erik says coolly. Moira had forgotten, or never noticed, quite how much taller he is than Charles; enough to loom over him from three feet away.

“You know, I did think we were on a first name basis. Erik.” Charles is not cool, but neutrally cutting.

“As a point of interest,” Moira observes, “if the two of you should get into any sort of physical altercation – now or in the future – I fully intend to shoot the winner. On principle.”

“Fatally, or non-fatally?” Charles’ eyebrows climb.

“Consider it a disincentive.”

“Don’t just _stand_ there in the doorway,” Erik snaps. He keeps glancing sideways at her, as if suddenly unsure what she’s going to do. Well. Good. Probably. “The last thing we need is to turn this into a soiree.”

“As you wish,” Charles says equitably, shutting the door behind him, “but no-one’s going to notice, or even hear voices from Moira’s dressing room.”

“You can do that?” Erik sounds – intrigued.

“Easily enough.”

“I did tell you,” Moira reminds Erik, “that Charles had Jean’s power.”

“Jean hears other people’s thoughts. Occasionally. _Controlling_ other minds is beyond her.”

“Not at all,” Charles disagrees. “Beyond her conscious mind, at the moment. With help, or training, I daresay she could do nearly anything – well, anything she put her mind to. As it were. But I’m sure Moira wasn’t quite so inaccurate about my own power.”

“Like a beach,” Erik says, as if he’s tasting the words, eyes narrowed. “Compared to a pebble.”

“On the other hand, Moira does exaggerate.”

Erik snorts. “Moira is accurate to the point of tedium, compared to most people in this place.”

“Moira is right here,” notes the lady in question. “Although I have to agree. It wasn’t an exaggeration.”

“That’s a great deal of power.” Erik is _observing_ Charles, for the first time that Moira’s seen, a light in his eyes that’s familiar but – she can’t place it.

“No more, I’d say, than you have. If you chose to exercise it, instead of haunt this opera.”

“I have my reasons.”

“As you’ve said, a time or two.” Moira is standing halfway between the two men, Charles at the door and Erik by the flower-table; it’s a little like watching a tennis match. “Which are your own.”

“Or not, if your friend – Charles – knows _everything_.”

“ _I_ , on the other hand, might be prone to exaggeration.” Charles smiles, suddenly rueful and boyish, standing there with his hands in his pockets. “I came here to be clear about my motives. As a mutant – and as a scientist, admittedly – I want to know about the people in this opera. What they – what we – are capable of. And especially you; you might be the oldest mutant here, if you hadn’t noticed. I want to know where our powers come from, and why, and what – what we might do with them. And, of course, I have ties to this place. My sister. Moira, who, if she hasn’t told you, is my oldest friend. I don’t meant to be a threat, or an intrusion. But I think we could learn a great deal from each other. Together.”

“That’s all?” Erik is deploying irony.

Moira has heard this speech, in embryonic form. Its effect – when deployed with the passion Charles is capable of delivering – is not inconsiderable. And curiously isolating. She, of course, is not one of _we_.

“Hardly all,” she says.

“All.” Charles fixes Erik with his I-am-sincere-and-very-believable gaze. “And – as a peace offering, if you like – your lair, wherever it is, is quite safe from me. And any other mind-readers, come to that; something about the ground around this place. Some ore or mineral, I think, shielding it from our minds. Not to mention that it’s quite difficult to find in its own right.”

“You could take the location from Moira’s mind, if I have your power right.”

“Charles promised me, a long time ago,” Moira says quietly. “He won’t.”

“But no promises cover _me_.” Erik’s eyes glint. “You’d never get down there otherwise. Believe me, Xavier, I’ve had time to guard my hiding-place.”

“I’m sure you have.” The glint in _Charles_ ’ eyes, on the other hand, is clear as day to Moira; it’s precisely the same look from the _second_ time he broke his arm, the time that didn’t involve Kurt and did involve the very large oak behind the vicarage.

Oh, well. Apparently since it’s not to be physical altercation, they’ve decided to go for intellectual. Moira is surprised to find she almost enjoys the prospect. As long as they don’t think they’re competing over _her_ – which they don’t seem to be silly enough to assume – it could be entertaining.

“I’ve wondered, Erik,” she says idly. “You have that chess set, down – down there. Do you play?”

“Ah, yes?” Erik’s attention flashes back to her, clearly wondering where that came from.

“ _Really_?” says Charles, on the instant.

“Charles,” Moira says, “used to lose to my father on a regular basis. Until he didn’t. You should try _him_. I never had the patience, myself. Too many rules.”

“And why would you suggest that?” Erik frowns.

“Because,” Moira announces deliberately, “I wouldn’t have to shoot the winner. It’s been a long night, gentlemen. I’m for my bed. Have fun.”

“Moira,” comes Erik’s voice as she’s at the door, Charles stepping aside for her. “I hope you kept up your vocal exercises, while you were off – holidaying.”

“She and Raven were in the music room every day,” Charles agrees. “Like clockwork. Or something less mechanical and more tedious.”

“This is a job, Charles, and I work at it,” Moira reminds him. “I did, Erik. Do we meet tomorrow?”

“At the usual time, if you please.” Erik’s voice is low, a little tentative. Did he _really_ think she would forego their lessons, even if he’s being – difficult, about other things?

“The usual time,” Moira breathes, all too conscious of Erik, of Charles’ eyes on her, and she hurries back to her dormitory with her heart beating an uncomfortable tattoo in her chest.

*

Their performances of _Figaro_ are to resume two nights hence – everyone is determined that nothing, not even more bodies, will stop _that_. Some members of the company – almost exclusively the human ones, who remain outside some of the circles of gossip - are still what you might refer to as twitchy. Refusing to go places alone, glancing up nervously every moment they’re on stage – but Moira finds it surprisingly easy to put a stop to that.

“Ready to resume, Miss MacTaggert?” Azazel greets her the day after the masquerade.

“Entirely. I hope you found our unplanned break relaxing.”

Azazel shrugs. There’s something odd in the motion, as there sometimes is with his movements, but Moira has never quite placed what. “Tedious, to be honest, but I wasn’t whisked away by an _old friend._ ”

Moira gives him a look. “I don’t know what you think I’ve spent two weeks doing, but most of it was making Raven accompany me while I practiced. And reading.”

Azazel favours her with one of his eerie grins. “Good, good. And you’re not afraid, to come back.”

“No.” Moira decides to take a – small – risk. “I am – given to understand – that our little unpleasantness on stage was an accident.”

“That man didn’t die by _accident_.”

“The discovery, not the death. Which – I am also given to understand – you could call self-inflicted.”

“He was looking for the Ghost.”

“He found the Ghost. Briefly.”

Azazel _hmmms_. “Shaw told Stanton to take the man on, did you know that? I saw him do very little work. A lot of prying into corners. I am...unsurprised.”

“I just wouldn’t want,” Moira says, “to have some of the company go around as they are, jumping at shadows. It’s – no more necessary than it ever was.”

“I thought as much. As did – a few I talked to.” Azazel’s eyes narrow. “But he isn’t easy to find, your Ghost, when one wants to talk to him. I couldn’t confirm it.”

“Well, then.”

They are joined by Janos, who greets them with a silent nod, and the conversation ends; but Moira observes Azazel talking to Stanton, and a gradual relaxation spreading through the company.

It’s not perfect, but it will do for now.

*

When she arrives for her lesson, later that afternoon – entering quietly through the alley door, after leaving obviously through the front – she hears the quiet murmur of voices from the main chamber. And it’s not Erik talking to himself, either; Moira can distinctly hear the timbre of two different voices.

Nothing about it _sounds_ threatening, but Moira is mindful of the last few weeks, and also that she’s never actually heard Erik _raise_ his voice when angry, so she slips off her shoes as quietly as possible and pads, tip-toe, towards the room.

She really must do something about a more useful means of defence than that ridiculous pistol, which, to date, hasn’t left her trunk.

By the time she’s at the door, which is slightly ajar, she can make out words.

“- I feel obliged to inform you I’ve never worked out if it connects to the sewers,” says Erik.

“It most certainly connects to the sea, it’s quite brackish,” says – oh. It’s Charles.

 _Charles?_

“Are you here for your lesson, Moira?” Charles asks, because of course the man can’t even be bothered _pretending_ he doesn’t know she’s there.

Moira sighs, and opens the door fully; she knows how foolish she must look, standing there with her shoes in hand. “Yes. You could have saved me rather a lot of fuss with my shoelaces, you know.”

“I was concentrating.” Charles waves a hand at the chessboard between him and Erik; he’s pulled the piano stool over to the small coffee table upon which it’s balanced. Erik looks up from the board with a pleased smile, as if he wasn’t sure she’d be here. “And I’ll confess to some curiosity as to whether you _could_ make it down the passage unheard.”

There’s something – “Charles, why is your hair damp?”

“Don’t you mean, ‘what are you doing here?’” Erik suggests, standing. “And is there a reason you were trying to sneak up on us?” It’s delivered with more amusement than condemnation.

“I didn’t know it _was_ Charles,” Moira answers sensibly, “and it didn’t sound like a fight but one never knows. And what _is_ he doing here?”

“Apparently,” Erik drawls, taking on a slightly drier tone, “Suggesting that it wasn’t possible to get here without my permission _was_ a challenge. I fished him out of the lake.”

Charles frowns. “I’d hardly call it _fished_. Or _lake_ , it’s barely deep enough to qualify.”

“Nevertheless.”

“And then you brought him in, dried him off, and made him play chess?” Moira looks Charles up and down; his clothes are rolled up at the cuffs, clearly spares of Erik’s.

“You can’t blame either of us for the chess,” Charles reminds her. “The chess was _your_ suggestion.”

“You’re not finished,” Moira observes. White and black are locked in battle, two pawns and a castle lost to White, a bishop and a pawn to Black; if they are at all equally matched, by Moira’s admittedly poor judgment, the game must have some time left to run.

“No, but it’s time for your lesson,” Erik says briskly, “and Charles will just have to lose to me at a later time.”

“I look forward to it.” Charles smiles, easy and new.

Moira wonders precisely what she’s got into here.

*  

 _Someone_ must win or lose, or even stalemate, Erik and Charles’ games of chess. Whoever it is, Moira never sees it but rarely; most of the time, the pieces are frozen in battle or marching lively across the board, as the two men exchange verbal blows. Moira is familiar with Charles’ intellectual enthusiasm, and Erik’s eloquent argument, but she never thought to see them turned against each other in friendly sparring.

 _Figaro_ proceeds, and it seems that Charles is in and out of the opera every other day, as he was before. More and more, though, Moira finds him orbiting Erik, or perhaps he and Erik orbiting each other; chess and debate and books borrowed and returned. She’s not sure what unsettles her more - to suddenly have another person so present in that space which had only been Erik’s, and to some extent hers, or how unobtrusive she finds Charles’ presence there. She knows how well Charles can make himself disappear from your attention, but this is not that quiet exercise of power; she got used to having Charles around in Westchester, and it doesn’t seem unnatural to have him here.

She expected something more from Erik, some jealousy or wariness, but there is none beyond his natural reserve. Moira isn’t quite sure why, or how he was persuaded that Charles posed no romantic threat to him, but she can’t be sorry for it. Still, it’s odd, like bracing yourself for cold and walking into a warm room. The tension never fades quite as it should, even as she is glad for it.

After a while, and some awkward shuffling of seating spots – Moira ends up stretched out on the rug by the fire more than once, paging through some score or book while the other pair are bent over the chess board – a settee appears. Moira can’t imagine how Erik got it in by himself (“Nails,” he explains economically) or how he did so unnoticed (“You’d be surprised what people don’t notice in this city at night”) but she claims it almost immediately.

She’s lying on the couch one night at the end of a very long week of performances, glass of wine in hand. Erik is sprawled loose-limbed in the armchair, and Charles reclining on his elbows by the fire; the chess game has been pushed aside for the moment. It’s late, the early side of morning, and Moira should really be returning to her bed upstairs, but she can’t be bothered to move. She says as much.

“Why are you still in the dormitory?” Charles regards her curiously. “I know the chorus are supposed to, but they’re not paying you so badly you couldn’t afford to take rooms outside the opera, and Raven does now, even though she _is_ supposed to be staying here and out of trouble. Though Irene is hardly the sort of trouble the rule was designed for.”

“Inertia, I suppose.” Moira shrugs, as much as she can while lying down. “You’re right, I could. I like being nearby.”

“You’d have more freedom to come and go,” Erik adds. “As it is, half the opera knows if you’re not where you’re supposed to be the same night, and the other half knows the next morning.”

“I didn’t realise my reputation was of such concern to you.”

“If you are in the public eye, you can’t afford to forget it. Even if you don’t like it.”

“Mmm, look at me,” Moira agrees. “Drinking with two men, all by myself. Clearly I’m beyond saving.”

“How do you drink all by yourself with two other people?” Charles asks.

She smiles. “With difficulty.”

“Erik has a point, though.” Charles rolls onto his front. “I hear Miss Frost – and Shaw – are due back in a week’s time. You can’t afford to give them any leverage.”

Moira sniffs. “As if _they’re_ not – but your point is taken.”

Erik’s face has darkened. “Just stay away from them, as much as you can. Especially with dear Emma’s – talent.”

“What is it?” Moira can’t help asking, again. Perhaps she can blame the wine. “What did Shaw do? Why won’t you tell me?”

“It’s not a story worth telling,” Erik says, bleakly.

“But it has a great deal to do with why you’re here at all, doesn’t it?” Charles looks up at him. “And that deserves some explanation.”

“Which you took. With your _everything_.”

“But Moira didn’t,” Charles says, almost too gently. “And I would say you owe her rather more than me.”

Erik’s eyes flick over to her; Moira holds her breath. “True enough.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” She clutches the stem of her glass, waits.

Erik tips his head back, closes his eyes; Charles is watching him intently, eyes dark. “The first time I met Shaw I was fourteen. It was during the war between Prussia and France; I don’t know if he had anything to do with that, though it’s not as if half of Europe needs excuses, to go to war. In any case. My mother and I were travelling to join my father. We were stopped, by Prussian soldiers.”

He pauses, face distant. “It wasn’t – anything out of the ordinary. I think. Just the chaos of war. But we were alone, and _Juden_ , and they decided it would be just as easy to kill us, take our things. People die, in wars. No-one cares. They didn’t. Until they tried to shoot us, and their bullets wouldn’t fly.”

“Is that how you discovered...” Moira trails off, nearly biting back the interruption.

“There’d been the odd – inexplicable happening, before. Pans jumping off stoves, times I should have cut myself and didn’t. But nothing like that. It was like a miracle, for a moment. Until the captain knocked me on the back of the head with his pistol-butt.”

Erik takes a drink of wine, the long line of his throat working. “I woke up in a tent, with Shaw. He’d attached himself to the army – medicine, he said, he’s a doctor, I suppose, or was, he called himself _Schmidt_ then – he didn’t have Emma, yet, she would have barely been out of the schoolroom.”

He’s rambling, which Moira has never seen, but she can scarcely bear to breathe, let alone break him from it.

“He was looking for people – people like us. Said something about the stress of war bringing out our gifts, he was so _pleased_ , to have found me, and then he wanted...he wanted me to do it again, move metal. So he put a _thaler_ on his writing-desk, and told me to move it. And I couldn’t.”

He takes a breath.

“And then he took the captain’s pistol, and pointed it at Mama, and said he would shoot her, if I did not move it.”

Moira doesn’t need to hear the end of this story. She doesn’t want to. By the fire, Charles’ face is etched in sorrow. This sort of pain – even if he lied, even if he barely skimmed Erik’s mind, and she doubts it was as quick as that, he would have seen it. He knows this story already.

“And I couldn’t,” Erik says.

He continues rapidly, as if trying not to look back. “Shaw kept me, for a little under a year. Trying to – _research_ , he said, our powers, but I think he just enjoyed hurting people. He found others, one or two, but they didn’t survive him. Then the war ended, and I managed to escape him, on the road back to Prussia. And he vanished. Whoever was funding him, maybe they decided he was too dangerous, maybe he failed to give them the answers they wanted – I don’t know. But he vanished, and it took me sixteen years to find him. That’s what I came to New York looking for.”

She does not need to ask why he sought Shaw. She does want to ask why he’s still alive. Erik could not have wanted anything but that.

“But Shaw’s alive, and you’re...” she gestures around. “Here. How?”

Erik rubs his jaw, makes a face that might be a smile, if you looked very nearly in the other direction. “I did a lot of things, in those sixteen years. Studied, for a little while. Architecture, engineering. I used to hang around the music school, listen to them performing, playing; my mother taught me the piano, when I was a child. It was – so different from all the rest of my life. It was an escape. When I came here, I did some work on the structure of this building, they were worried about ground movement, water. That’s when I found this place. It was secret, safe. I felt like having somewhere safe to be. This was before Shaw purchased the opera, you understand, he was further south, near the capital – I was still hunting down leads.”

“And the Opera Ghost?” Charles hasn’t spoken since this began; Moira is almost startled to hear him.

Erik does smile, a little, at that. “They had some fairly terrible performers, when I came here, started finding out the secrets of this building. The first few notes were just to amuse myself. I never thought someone would take up on them. And then it all sort of...snowballed, grew. It was mostly an accident.”

“So you stayed because there were other mutants here?” Moira asks.

Erik shakes his head; Charles does too, at the same time. “The other way around. Azazel I had met, in Europe, many years ago, though I doubt he remembers it and I’m certain if he did he doesn’t know who I am. He – is hiding more than anyone else, if you only knew it. Angel I rescued almost by accident, from some less than polite gentlemen on the street. I told her to try auditioning here, she couldn’t be worse than some of the girls they had. And then – like the story of the Ghost – it grew.”

“But Shaw.” Moira can’t help going back to it. “You meant – I can hardly believe you just _gave up_ on revenge.”

His eyes narrow. “I didn’t. But Shaw – it’s not that simple. He doesn’t age, you know; he looks the same as he did near twenty years ago. He takes in energy, somehow, from...anything; candles. Grenades. Blows. I don’t know _how_ to kill him. And when he did return, and bought this place – Emma was with him, and even when I didn’t know she was a mind-reader, I knew she was a danger. And by then I felt...obliged, if you like, to everyone here, all my fellow...mutants. I still want him dead. But not in a way that endangers this place.”

“Or that ends with _your_ death, too,” says Charles. “And that didn’t matter so much, before, did it?”

“No.” Erik glances over at Moira; his gaze lingers a fraction. “Before, it didn’t.”

“And now Shaw’s looking for you,” Moira concludes. “How does this play out, I wonder?”

Charles is frowning, as if facing some dilemma; Moira wonders what it is. Surely not – but it’s most likely. Well, it’s a decision only he can make.

“We’ll have to see.” Erik sets down his empty glass. “But do you know: I am glad I will not be seeing it alone.”

“You won’t, my friend.” Charles looks up at him almost solemnly, if not for the curve of his lips. “You won’t.”

 **15.**

As if summoned, through some evil magic, by that conversation – Moira discounts Emma’s mind-reading, firstly because they were in Erik’s rooms and secondly because even Charles’ mind does not reach so many miles – Emma, and Shaw, reappear only a few days later. Emma appears to have decided that the best way to deal with Moira is to ignore her; apart from what is necessary for their roles, they do not speak. Moira is also sure Emma has bounced off Charles’ brick wall a time or two – which Charles confirms – but as they were glancing blows, and she avoids Emma as much as she can, there is nothing to be done about it.

Shaw, on the other hand, is at the opera far more than he ever was before; in the office with Stanton, going over receipts and accounting books, talking to Azazel and Logan (or trying to – the pair of them can cut a conversation shorter than a fresh-mowed lawn, when they want) and in general making a thorough nuisance of himself. He has ceased to ask Moira pointed questions about the Opera Ghost, but has taken up the habit of making insinuations about her relationship with Charles which are as unpleasant as they are untrue. Not because the _idea_ of an affair with Charles, abstracted from everyday concerns, is unpleasant – that never was the problem, then or now – but because the mere fact of Shaw speculating about it makes it so.

Even if she _didn’t_ know him for a murderer and worse, she’d dislike the man intensely.

His newfound interest in his investment (in social capital, not monetary; the opera usually struggles to break even, Moira’s well aware) worries Angel, as well.

“Shaw’s been around here a lot, since he came back from Washington,” she comments to Moira one afternoon, as everyone is starting to prepare for tonight’s performance. “You notice that?”

“I have,” Moira replies. They’re in the chorus dressing room; it’s nearly empty, at this hour, but Moira dropped by to borrow a comb, having left hers at her new apartment. “I didn’t realise he had such an interest in the place.”

“I don’t think he does.” Angel is fidgety, unlike her usual self; she’s capping and uncapping a pencil of eyeliner, flicking it between her fingers. There’s a soft susurrus as her wings shift under her dress, protesting their confinement. “I think he’s up to something.”

“He doesn’t like the Ghost.”

Angel rolls her eyes. “As if the whole company doesn’t know _that_. But why all the interest _now_? I know we had the thing – on stage – but everyone’s nearly forgotten it. It won’t happen again, if Shaw doesn’t keep prying.”

“I don’t think he likes things out of his control, either. And he has to know that the whole company is, near enough.”

“It’s not just the Ghost, either.” Angel’s brow furrows. “He’s been asking questions about Hank, about Raven – she doesn’t look too much like her brother, with that face she’s wearing now. If he talks to anyone who knew her back home, he’ll know that. It’s like he _knows_. About us. What we are.”

Moira bites her lip; she’s not sure what to say to that. “Everyone just needs to be...careful. More than usual.”

“That, I know. We’ve all been getting slack, of late. Feeling safe. It’s mostly your Charles Xavier, you know? He talks, and you can’t help _hoping_.”

“Is that so bad?” Moira says, slowly. “Feeling safe? Hoping?”

“Not so bad. But...not so smart, maybe. Look at someone like Hank. We all know he’s too smart to be hauling around our scenery and re-designing the trapdoors, I know he’s been getting notes from the Ghost about it but he’s been doing most of the planning. But where’s he going to go, like he is? What if he runs into Shaw, one of these days – even Stanton? At best they fire him, and then where does he go, off to be a circus freak? At worst...”

Angel shakes her head. “No, hope’s nice and all, but we can’t get caught up in it. The world doesn’t play that nice.”

“Well it _should_ ,” Moira retorts, unaccountably angry. “It should. You should all be safe. From Shaw, from everyone.”

“And what are we going to do about it? Some army we are, an opera company.”

“Does it need to be a matter of armies?”

“Twenty years ago, or thereabouts,” Angel says, “it took armies to make it so my momma could walk anywhere in this country and not have to fear someone _selling_ her, with all the law protecting him and none for her. There’s an army in these walls, if we wanted there to be, instead of just putting on operas – but do you think people are going to care about what we’re _not_ doing, or what we might do?”

“I thought our problem was Shaw.” Moira opens her palms. “But you’re saying it’s the world.”

“Well.” Angel smiles wryly. “Shaw’s about the size of what we can handle right now. I figure we should stick to what we can handle.”

“I agree entirely. That being the case – what _are_ we going to do?”

The other woman shrugs. “Nothing, for the moment. Armando and Alex ran off that last stagehand Shaw brought on, week before last. We’ve just got to keep making sure no-one else comes in that we can’t be sure of.”

“Is _that_ what happened?” Moira had half-thought Erik had just made a neater job of body disposal this time round, but neither he nor Charles had mentioned anything, and she didn’t think they were _quite_ stupid enough to assume she’d be happy being kept in the dark about it. “I did wonder – he practically vanished. And when you say be sure of – you have to know that means _anyone_ , normal or – not.”

Angel’s eyes narrow. “You _do_ know something about Shaw.”

Moira holds up her hands. “It’s not my story to tell, you must understand. But he is one of – one of you, and he’s not safe, and it’s not safe for him to know about anyone else here.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” Angel’s tone is disapproving. “You should have mentioned this before, you know that?”

Moira knows that. But she doesn’t want to have to explain _how_ she knew, and she doesn’t think she could repeat Erik’s story, even stripped of identifying detail. Maybe not under torture. It’s too private. “I know. As I said – it’s not my story, and it was hard-won. But tell whoever you think needs to know.”

Angel nods sharply. “I will.”

Moira puts a hand on her arm. “I don’t think I’ve ever said, Angel – I really have valued your advice. And your help. I know I just sort of showed up here not so long ago, and now I’m singing lead roles, and – honestly, no matter the Ghost, or how awful Emma is, or any of it, I’d have packed up and gone back to London without you and Raven and everyone.”

That wins her a smile, a real one. “We can’t all sing the lead – and I only ended up here by accident, anyhow, I never meant to make a career in something as nice as the opera – but I’m glad you know that. Don’t forget us, when you’re busy being a prima donna.”

“Honestly,” Moira says, “being a prima donna is the last thing on my mind, these days.”

  
*

It certainly is. Certain other people’s behaviour is taking up much more of her time.

Erik may be avoiding being alone with Moira outside of their lessons, with all his considerable skill – but he’s quite happy to be alone with _Charles_ , which Moira wouldn’t phrase in quite such a weighted way, except that –

\- except that she thinks she has every reason to. They are not, to the casual eye, obvious. But while Charles is happy to touch people, his mind-reading dissolving away boundaries, Erik rarely touches even Moira, except when it is necessary or he forgets himself. He used to forget himself a great deal. Moira catches him remembering himself at the last second nearly every day, now. A hand that ghosts over her elbow, a smooth step backwards. All part of his insistence, she’s sure, that she doesn’t need him.

Moira isn’t sure how to convince him otherwise, short of actually seducing the man (again), and bluntly at that. At least if he were to tell her _no_ outright she could nurse her sorrows and move on. This – abrogation of memory is much more vexing, the way he constantly almost – and then doesn’t.

Charles, on the other hand, behaves with no more familiarity than might be expected, given their history. But he watches her, carefully, when he thinks she isn’t looking. Watching, she thinks, to see if _she_ is watching. In self-defence, she doesn’t think about it while she’s around him. That trick he’d mentioned, her regiment of mind – it’s true enough.

But she sees it, all the same, the easy way they touch each other, hands brushing or standing close. The way they lean into each other from a distance, over chess, over an argument, the way the world is shut out as they debate. The way Erik laughs at Charles’ horror of a singing voice, instead of just wincing, easy and free. If either was a woman, it would be painfully obvious; as it is, it takes her a while to notice, but like those visual illusions of dots and lines resolving into portraits, once seen, it cannot be unseen. Suddenly a flush on Charles’ cheeks or some slight dishevelment of Erik’s person resolves into a picture Moira doesn’t – doesn’t know how she feels about.

How _are_ you supposed to feel, when a man who is your singing teacher and your friend and briefly your lover, maybe still, or at least you’d _like_ him still to be if you could get him alone – if he and another man, who is your oldest friend and proposed to you very badly and can dance with you with both your eyes closed, if the pair of them are, quite clearly, engaged in an affair?

The worst bit is that she’s not even sure she’s jealous. Certainly _envious_. But mostly, suddenly, it’s loneliness; a feeling of being locked out of something. For some months now, after all, she has been struggling with her feelings over them, trying to work out what she wants – what she can have – what’s _right_. It seems like cheating for them to sidestep her this way. It’s not as if they’re avoiding her in anything _else_ , or even that the intimacy they have quite outside of any affairs of the bedroom (of the heart) has been abated. (Setting aside the loss of her private conversations with Erik, outside of lessons.)

She does try to talk to Erik about it, one day after her lesson is over. She is meant to be alone in her dressing room, so he takes her back up; the journey is silent, on his part.

“You’ve been spending rather a lot of time with Charles,” she begins tentatively, as they step out of the small boat, to begin the upward journey. “I am glad you’ve taken to each other. I had some dreadful worries that you’d be – well, that you wouldn’t, and you’d do something utterly stupid.”

“Were you fancying a duel?” Erik’s lips curl sardonically. “With swords, perhaps? The winter has been a bit fierce for that sort of thing, outside at dawn. We’d be running around in the snow.”

“I hadn’t imagined,” Moira corrects, “that either of you would stoop to fighting with such pedestrian weapons as _swords_. But occasionally things took on that tone, yes.”

“You have an over-active imagination.”

“True. Or perhaps not enough; as it turns out, I should have been worried about you monopolising each other. Do you know, I feel we scarcely – talk, anymore.”

She bits back _let alone anything else_ , because it would be a touch too close to a crude proposition and she isn’t ready for that.

“You almost sound jealous.” Erik is wary.

“I’m not _jealous_ ,” Moira says a touch too sharply. But she means it. “It’s just – a little lonely.”

Erik is silent, for a few moments. “You have a great many friends, I’ve always thought. Raven, and all the chorus girls, and you get along marvellously with the rest of the company -”

“I’m not lacking friends,” Moira says, exasperated. “You know very well this isn’t what this is about. But – Erik – what do _you_ want of me?”

They are at the other side of her mirror. Damn, damn, _damn_.

She is startled by a touch on her cheek; Erik turns her head, to look at him. She stares up for a moment, confused.

“I want you to be _great_ ,” Erik says. “I told you that. Long ago.”

Before she can say anything, he’s gone, down the corridor. She could chase after him, but – but –

Moira returns to the too-bright light of her dressing room, damning Erik, damning all men, damning Charles for good measure, and damning her own foolish pride.

 **16.**

She is meant to have a lesson, one afternoon, when everything she has been meaning to say (tried to say, to Erik) spills over when she arrives and Charles is there, all blue-eyed and, and _hopeful_.

“Oh, hello, Moira,” Charles says. “I thought you’d be by. How are you?”

“You saw me yesterday,” she points out. “I don’t believe anything has changed dramatically since then.”

“No. It’s just that – I don’t mean to pry, but – I have been getting the impression that there’s something weighing on your mind.”

Moira shoots him a flat look. “That’s rather coy, considering.”

Charles bites his lip. “You’re unhappy. And we are – at fault.”

 “Do you think I’m _stupid_?” she bursts out, unable for once to contain herself. “Or that I didn’t – I wouldn’t – I see how you look at each other. I know that – for goodness’ sake, I share a stage with Armando every evening, he and Alex are the worst-kept secret in this opera house. I know what you – but you act like I’m _blind_. And Erik, damn him, won’t even _talk_ to me outside of lessons, as if he’s afraid – I don’t know what he’s afraid of. It’s insulting and it’s infuriating.  Of course I’m unhappy.”

“We didn’t,” Charles says quietly, moving towards her, “ _mean_ to make you unhappy.”

“I don’t _care_ what you’re doing in bed!”

Charles’ eyes flick, for a guilty second, to the couch. Moira sighs. “Or on the couch, or – don’t tell me you didn’t pick up more than enough of my memory about Erik and I on that rug there, because if you didn’t rummage through mine I guarantee you did through Erik’s.”

He has the grace to look ashamed, a little. “You were thinking about it _very_ loudly for the next day or so, if you must know. And those dreams.”

“It was a good memory.” It was. Charles’ almost-stifled smirk says he knows exactly how good. Moira lounges back in the armchair and refuses to be ashamed; she sits on that couch _all_ the time.

“You’re sitting on that armchair,” Charles adds helpfully.

It would be helpful if that was an off-putting thought, but it’s oddly – Moira looks around the room. “Just tell me the kitchen table is safe.”

“Quite. Mostly. No, quite.”

“The point is,” Moira says, to drag her mind off the images of – she doesn’t know the _precise_ mechanics of what men do together in bed – or mostly not on kitchen tables, apart from sodomy, which presumably is more pleasurable than it sounds. But she has a _general_ idea, and the image of Charles and Erik, kissing slowly up against the table, Charles’ leg hooked around Erik’s ankle, and –

Well. She has no idea where _that_ image came from.

“The point is,” she manages a little breathlessly, “I don’t, I mean, I really, I tried to explain to Erik but he has the emotional range of – of _cutlery_ – I don’t care. But I care if the pair of you are going to try to shut me out and tell me it’s for my own good or my career or whatever it is. At least have the _courage_ , damn you, to tell me it’s because you’re in love.”

“Do you think that’s what this is?” Charles sounds surprised. He shouldn’t. He’s the mind-reader.

“It hasn’t escaped my attention – it couldn’t,” Moira tells him, laced with an emotion she doesn’t care to define, “that you’re rather hopelessly in love with him.”

“Moira.” Charles sinks to one knee in front of her; it brings them face-to-face. “Mutually exclusive things.”

She isn’t quite sure why that, of all things, should break her, but it does; she leans forward, takes him by the shirt and tugs him forward for a kiss, the one she never gave him before but meant to, that’s the thing, it was never that she didn’t care about Charles but she didn’t know how to fit him in her life, could not see how to fit herself into his, and now he’s made his way in and set up housekeeping and she can’t bear to have him leave, much less both of them. She couldn’t bear both of them.

 _Moira, Moira, we didn’t mean_ , comes Charles’ mind-voice, a little ragged. He has a hand behind her neck, now, and is kissing her open-mouthed and deep; she runs a hand down his chest, thinks about all the ways she hasn’t touched him, all the ways she’d like to.  

 _I like those thoughts, keep having them._ Charles breaks off to mouth his way down her neck. _You’re right, by the way. It wasn’t just your dreams, I did look through Erik’s memories. They’re very - distinct. It wasn’t very gentlemanly. Sorry._

“Not very gentlemanly at all,” Moira agrees, or tries to; she’s a little distracted by having managed to undo Charles’ top three shirt buttons and get a hand to skin, underneath, warm and silky; he gasps when she drags her fingers over a nipple.

There’s probably a reason she shouldn’t be doing this, but it’s very hard to remember, if she can remember it at all. Heat, building in the pit of her stomach and winding its tendrils through the rest of her, is burning it away.

Charles makes a thoughtful humming noise against her collarbone, then drops from his sprawl across her to both knees, pushing her skirts carelessly up to her hips. He plants a kiss, then another, half-way up her thigh, then glances up at her; his eyes are very bright, and there is a flush high on his cheekbones. Moira bites her lip, and spreads her legs wider.

He works his way upwards carefully, with fingers and mouth, mouthing around her garter clips and into the soft crease between thigh and torso, and by the time his mouth touches her where she’s been waiting for it, she’s a sweaty mess of impatience and want, moaning wantonly when he licks along her folds, wet right through the cotton of her undergarments.

Either Charles has a lot of practice at this or he’s just naturally talented – or it’s the mind-reading, could be that too – because it takes him a very few minutes to reduce Moira to outright begging.

 _Some practice. The mind-reading didn’t hurt in getting it, I’ll admit._ He traces a finger, _just_ outside; Moira tries very hard not to whimper.

 _Was there something you were wanting?_

“You know perfectly well,” Moira gasps out, then whimpers again when Charles chuckles against her, and slides not one but two fingers around the edge of her undergarments and into her, curling up. She’s so wet there’s almost no resistance, just a sweet slide.

Apparently Charles was holding back, because he sets to work in earnest, thrusting carefully with his fingers and working her with his tongue. Moira’s clutching at his shoulders, on the verge of tipping over, mind blissfully blank of anything except the pleasure of this, not just the physical but of things she’s wanted and not admitted for too long, of Charles’ mind, brushing against her as intimately as he’s touching her body, the satisfaction and pleasure and wonder spilling over from him -

\- and a noise that _isn’t_ the sounds of their tryst catches her attention; her eyes flick up, half-lidded, and she sees Erik standing in the doorway.

Moira is still trying to work out what that means, to still the motion of her hips, when Charles tugs her attention back with a wordless thought and sucks – gently but insistently – at her nub.

She comes biting at her lip and clutching at Charles’ shoulders, perfectly aware of Erik watching her. When she recovers, she’ll be embarrassed, but the aftershocks are reverberating too sweetly, and Charles has his head laid against her thigh, his breath stirring them along. In a minute. In a minute.

But Moira doesn’t get a minute, because Erik is striding over, intending to – she can’t quite muster the brain cells to work out what he – this is going to be _terribly_ -

\- oh. He sinks down next to Charles, and takes Charles’ hand. Charles’ right hand. The one Charles had _in_ her, and Erik is taking it. It’s wet, shiny-slick along the index and middle fingers, wet from touching her, just like Charles’ mouth and chin, and Erik is – he’s taking those fingers into his _mouth_ , tonguing Moira’s dampness off Charles’ fingers, and Moira is fairly certain that she has stopped breathing. So, from the look on his face, heavy-lidded and mouth slightly open, has Charles.

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” says Erik. It’s _almost_ smooth, but there’s an undertone that – well, maybe it’s Moira’s imagination, because Charles just makes a sort of strangled noise.

 _Oh, not at_ all.

“Oh, come _here_ ,” Moira says aloud, and uncurls the leg that somehow worked its way up onto Charles’ shoulder so she can lean forward and take Erik’s mouth, the way she’s wanted to for weeks, months, ever since the last time. She can taste a trace of herself on his tongue, musky and strange, and she _wants_.

 _Anything in particular?_ Charles inquires, sitting up to let Erik and Moira angle themselves more easily into each other. _Because I can think of several things that would be much better served by a bed._

“So can I,” murmurs Erik as they break apart.

With a few moments to recover, Moira can feel the pulse of desire, low in her stomach, climbing again; Erik is hard against her thigh, and Charles still has a hand curled, loose and warm, around her knee.

She can think of so many things, she hardly knows where to start.

 _With a bed_ , Charles insists.

“He tends to lose his voice, when he’s – engaged,” Erik says, low and gravelly, in her ear.

Moira should know that. Wants to know it, see it.

“I hope it’s a _big_ bed,” she says.

“We can manage,” and there’s a smile in Erik’s voice.

*

It does take some management, because Erik had apparently acquired a bed with scarcely a thought to the prospect he might share it with someone, let alone _two_ someones – though perhaps that was not such an odd assumption, living in the bowels of the opera house as he did. Moira laughs when she sees it.

“We’ll manage, will we?”

“We’ll just have to stay,” Charles says, punctuating his words with a nip to her earlobe, hands settling on her hips, “very close together.”

Erik does most of the work of undressing her, though she has to undertake a fair part herself as Charles retaliates by undressing _him_. By the time Moira falls back to sit on the edge of the bed, he has Erik unclothed, lean and beautiful in the lamplight; Charles himself has been divested of everything but his trousers. He’s kissing Erik thoroughly, Erik’s hands sliding around his arse. It goes on, Moira watching appreciatively, until they break off for air.

 _Did you think about what you wanted, Moira_? Charles asks.

“Don’t,” Moira says deliberately, “stop.” She wants this, wants to see them. It would be easy, she thinks, to let them turn their attention to her; but she is open-eyed about this, knows how much this is about the pair of them.

Besides. It’s not like it’s _difficult_ to watch.

“I have an idea,” Erik says, mouth curling in a very self-satisfied way. He takes Charles by the shoulders, pushes him gently down onto the bed beside Moira. “Occupy yourselves for a moment.”

Moira’s happy to go along with _that_ suggestion, pulling Charles down beside her so they’re lying face-to-face on the bed. He kisses her lightly, then again, harder, as if satisfied by the preliminary result. It’s shocking, in its way, to lie like this with Charles, naked and wanton, Moira’s thighs wet from Charles’ attention earlier and Charles rocking up against her, everything smooth skin and heat and unbounded _want_. She has spent so long _not_ imagining this with Charles that it seems more like a finally-permitted fantasy than reality.

 _You didn’t really do a very good job of_ not _imagining,_ Charles chides her. Very convenient, the way he can speak to her while his tongue is in her mouth. _It was occasionally very distracting._

 _How do you do it_ , Moira thinks, _live with the differences between what we all think and what we say?_

 _Sometimes painfully. But you knew that. Compared to –_

Charles’ mental voice breaks off, and his mouth breaks away, as Erik climbs onto the bed beside him, the other side from Moira; it’s a narrow fit, but just doable. He arches against Moira, whimpering a little, as Erik runs a possessive hand down his spine.

“ _Oh_ ,” Moira says, with a mixture of curiosity and – alright, yes, lust. “Are you going to -”

“Fuck him?” Erik says, in tones that go all the way to where she’s pressing up against the thigh Charles, at some point, worked between her legs. “Most certainly.”

 _You’re not quite sure why we’d do that_ , Charles thinks with a certain amount of amusement. Moira tries not to blush; it’s not _her_ fault she’s unacquainted with – this sort of thing.

“I think I’m about to get a firsthand demonstration.”

Erik is dribbling oil on his fingers. Moira doesn’t have the right angle to _see_ what he’s doing to Charles, though she makes a mental note to fix that at a later date, but she can feel the results of what he does next, the way Charles goes stiff and then sort of melts into her, and something more – an echo in the back of her head, of softness pressed down her front and some working a finger into her, except –

 _Mmmrhmm, am I projecting?_

 _“_ It’s all right,” Moira murmurs, biting at Charles’ collarbone. “It’s all right.”

It’s – nothing she’s ever felt before, she’ll grant, but it heightens the experience, makes her feel like she’s touching Charles’ mind as much as he’s touching hers. Erik is working with three fingers now, brushing in a pattern that –

Charles leaves a bite on her shoulder that is definitely going to bruise as Erik hits something that Moira definitely doesn’t have an analogy for.

“Getting the picture?” Erik asks, a little smugly. He drops a kiss on her shoulder, then on Charles’.

“Yes,” Moira gets out, but it’s a bit strangled. It’d be so easy just to rearrange her legs and let Charles slip into –

 _Just a minute more, mmm, oh, Erik, just hurry up, now, now_ now.

Erik laughs, low and delighted, before he presses into Charles; Moira can certainly feel that, the slow burn, and an even more distant echo that might be what _Erik_ is feeling, but her own sensations are still at the forefront and she’s distracted when Erik reaches around with an oily hand to help guide Charles into her. It’s been too long since her tryst with Erik by the fire, but Charles worked her open so well earlier that it’s all pleasure, that feeling unlike anything else of being filled, taken.

They all pause for a moment, as if by consensus, before Erik thrusts, very gently, a motion that carries all the way through to Moira. Charles is making a continuous whimpering noise, almost at the edge of hearing, but it’s not a complaint.

To be honest, when Moira has a chance to think – which is hard, as she clutches Erik’s arm, buries her face in Charles’ neck, luxuriates in the slick fullness inside her – she’s worried about how long this is going to last, but it just seems to go on and on, the pace winding up until Erik’s thrusting into Charles with as much force as the position allows him, Moira’s hips rocking up to meet him, until Erik finally mutters _Charles, bitte, bitte_ into Charles’ ear, and everything crashes out into a searing white pleasure that laps at them again and again before receding.

It would be very near perfect, in fact, if in the haze of afterglow, gently pulling away from each other and wincing at the separation of sweaty skin, Moira doesn’t forget exactly how little space they’re dealing with and fall off the bed. Except she does.

There’s dead silence for a second or two, before Erik bursts out laughing, a carefree laugh she’s never heard from him, and not much more than another second passes before Charles joins in.

“Stop it!” Moira protests weakly. “It’s not that amusing. I mean it. Stop it. _Stop_ it.”

But it’s hard to protest sincerely when she’s beginning to laugh herself, and she clambers back up onto the bed, batting at Charles as he covers his face with his arms and laughs even harder. Erik brings back a washcloth so they can clean up cursorily before collapsing back onto the narrow space. No-one seems much inclined to move. 

It’s warm, a feeling that goes beyond physical temperature. Moira drags her fingers along Erik’s arm, snuggles a little closer into Charles. She could lie here all week, or it feels like it.

“You know,” she says, “we could have done this weeks ago.”

“I wanted to do this weeks ago,” mumbles Charles, having recovered the power of verbal speech, “but Erik took a lot of talking around.”

“Oh?” Moira pokes at her recalcitrant – lover, she supposes, now. “And why’s that?”

“I did mean it,” Erik argues. “About – you don’t need me – and besides, I couldn’t ask you to – to – _this._ ”

“You could have asked Charles,” Moira points out sensibly, “if I was likely to be amenable.”

“At a minimum,” Charles adds, “I was sure you were _persuadable_.”

“Unless you’ve suddenly developed an unusual sense of propriety.” Moira smirks at the thought. “Which, clearly, you haven’t, what with all the debauchery.”

“Are you complaining?” Erik raises an eyebrow. It’s a bit hard to see, with most of his face in a pillow.

“That we didn’t start earlier, yes.”

“Just think,” Charles says happily, “of all the debauchery we’ve got left to work through.”

“You’re a terrible, terrible person.”

“I’m going to die happy, though.”

“Just as long,” Moira concludes, “as you’re not going to try any longer to get rid of me. Because you’re not going to.”

Erik sighs, not unhappily. “It wasn’t that I _wanted_ to.”

“Good.”

“It does feel awfully _selfish_ , I must admit.” Charles tangles his fingers in Erik’s hair, playing idly. “On someone’s part. All our parts, if you like. To demand everything we want, instead of choosing. Everyone chooses, you know. It’s half of human doubt.”

“No,” Moira says, eventually. “I rather think it’s the opposite. A sort of generosity of spirit.”

“It’s a more pleasant way of looking at it, certainly.”

“It’s just practical,” Erik decides.

They stay there, in comfortable silence, for a long while.

 **17.**

Moira is certain half the company will detect a change in her demeanour, the next day, but she gets nothing more than a quizzical look from Jean. Apparently overwhelming happiness and a deep contentment with the world and everything in it (even the bits of it that contain, say, Shaw and Emma) does not translate to her face in a way that excites comment. That, or she’s a better actress than she thought she was. (Opera, for all its melodrama, does not require a _great_ deal of acting ability.)

That’s until she runs into Raven, who immediately goes all narrow-eyed and drags her into a corner when she sees the chance.

“Tell me,” she says, dangerously, “ _tell_ me you didn’t decide to go and _validate_ all my innuendo at the masquerade, please. Something’s been making Charles irksomely smug for weeks now, but I thought it was just some academic discovery or something equally dull, since you certainly weren’t looking pleased enough. And now -”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Moira responds automatically.

“Just tell me you didn’t go and let my brother seduce you. It’s not that I object to you, but surely you’ve worked out you can do much better than him -”

“I did not go and let your brother seduce me,” says Moira, which has the virtue of being entirely within the letter of Raven’s request, if wildly outside the spirit.

Possibly outside the letter as well, if you include what they’d gotten up to once everyone had got their breath back.

Apparently that thought is quite visible on her face, because Raven lets out a frustrated _hiss_. “Moira, _really_?”

“I actually don’t see why it would be your business,” Moira feels moved to say, “I’ve never had anything to say about _your_ affairs -”

“I don’t have affairs, I have Irene -”

“- the point being, I can do as I please with Charles, or –“

“- _or_?” Raven pounces on that like a frustrated cat. “Moira, are you saying it’s someone _else_?”

That’s a conversation Moira really doesn’t want to have, now or ever, especially since it would involve some explanation to Raven of her brother’s attraction to men, which would take a shocking amount of hypocrisy on Raven’s part to object to, but is still not something Moira wants to be responsible for explaining.

If nothing else, all potential hypocrisy aside, Raven will _murder_ Charles for not making the revelation himself.

Which leads to another thought: if this goes on, there’s an excellent chance someone is going to have to introduce Raven to Erik. They’ll either get on like the proverbial act of arson or kill each other. It might be best to delay _that_ for as long as possible, too.

Raven’s eyes have gone very wide. “Moira, it’s not...you’re not...you know. _Him_.”

“I,” says Moira, intelligently.

Raven folds her arms. “Because I hope you know that even though I go on about him, Charles is very fond of you. Which doesn’t mean you have to give in to his blandishments, but if you’re taking up with someone else he really does deserve an explanation.”

If Raven means to induce a sudden onset of headache, she’s doing rather well. “I. Raven. Would you make up your mind how you feel about Charles?”

Raven sighs. “I know, I know. It’s just that he’s not very good at understanding anyone if he can’t poke around in their brains, and he really is – he really does like you a lot, and I don’t want to see him get his heart broken because you didn’t realise that but I don’t want to see _you_ get hurt because he can’t manage normal human interaction without shuffling through your skull, and it’s all a bit confusing.”

“It’s extremely confusing,” Moira agrees. “Raven, understand – I’m...I’m very fond of Charles, too. I don’t intend to hurt him. Or to be hurt by him.”

Raven nods. “Well...good. Good.”

Then she frowns. “So what _about_ the Ghost?”

“Oh, goodness, would you look at that,” Moira babbles, “I’m afraid I really must go, I have to see Marie about my costume, we’ll talk later, shall we?”

She sweeps past Raven and down the corridor as fast as she can manage.

“Don’t think I’m going to let this go!” Raven yells after her.

Moira is privately thankful she’s not living in the same room as her anymore. She wouldn’t get any rest until she confessed, and _that_ really doesn’t bear thinking about.

*

“I had,” Moira tells Erik later – not a lesson, just quiet time with the pair of them, that evening – “a rather interesting conversation with Raven, earlier today.”

“About what?” Erik studies her, for a few seconds; they’re curled up in the armchair, going back and forth over the day’s newspaper, as much as Moira’s corsetry allows her to curl up. It’s probably more domestic than they have ever permitted themselves to be. “That silly expression you’ve probably had on your face all day?”

Moira rolls her eyes. “Why you hide yourself away when you exude such charm and affability, I’ll never know.”

“You’ve been smiling.” Erik runs a finger down the side of her cheek. “It suits you.”

“You should look in the mirror yourself,” Moira retorts, but she is, she is, she’s been smiling since she woke and she’s beaming fit to hurt her face now, at Erik, who is comfortably ensconced with her, touching calf to neck, instead of sending her away. “Did Charles say if he’d be by?”

“Mmm, later. Some university thing.”

“I see.”

“What _was_ this conversation with Raven, then?”

“As you said. My terribly silly expression. She might not have Charles’ mind-reading but dear Lord, she can spot when you’re hiding something.”

“And she can’t make up her mind whether she wants you to marry her brother or break his heart?”

“She would like me to undertake not to do either. I don’t know that _Raven_ knows what she wants, regarding Charles.”

Erik hmmms. “At least Charles is clear on the matter.”

“Of what he wants?”

“Yes.”

Moira grins, laying a kiss somewhere in the vicinity of Erik’s ear. “And at least we can both agree he has excellent taste.”

Moira wonders what she did, to be this lucky – and what the price might be.

*

Moira doesn’t think anything of the score she finds tucked under _Don Giovanni_ , on top of Erik’s piano, until she recognises the handwriting and begins to leaf through it. It’s quite clearly Erik’s work, but it’s not a transcription or adaptation of a work she knows; this is something new. A new _opera_.  

Fascinated, she sits down at the piano and plays a few bars of a melody. It clearly _references_ the styles of opera she’s familiar with, playing with them, but it’s not classical or baroque or even modern; it’s something else altogether, wild and new. It looks to be complete, though there’s the odd re-written patch; Moira gets the sense that this is a work a very long time in progress, probably copied and re-copied a dozen times.

“What are you doing?” snaps Erik, right behind her. She nearly jumps right off the seat. He snatches the score off the music stand with perhaps more speed than she’s ever seen him do _anything_.

“If you don’t want people to look at something, don’t leave it lying around in obvious and tempting places,” says Moira. “And I can’t imagine why you’d _want_ to hide that. It’s very good.”

It is, too. It’s not traditional, perhaps, but performing it would be a challenge, and Moira relishes those.

“Don’t be trite,” Erik scowls, trying to smooth the pages he crumpled in his haste.

“Don’t be petty. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it. Ask Charles whether I mean it, if you like.”

Erik makes a noise of negation. “As if Charles wouldn’t deal out compliments because he could.”

“I said to get his word on _mine_ , not to ask his opinion. Charles is perfectly capable of appreciating music, but he has all the talent of – of –“ A suitable comparison fails Moira. “Someone extremely talentless. He might be a genius in many fields, but you couldn’t ask him to judge this.”

Erik’s mouth quirks. “True enough.”

“How long have you been working on it?” Moira asks.

“A...while.”

“You needn’t let me finish going through it if you’d rather I didn’t. But I would like to.”

He looks torn. “Really?”

“Really.”

He hands it over as if he’ll regret it when he gets a chance to think about it; Moira beams. “Thank you. Did you write it for this company, or...?”

Erik sinks down onto the back of the couch, stretching out his legs. “Not the first drafts. I certainly haven’t assigned parts. My main worry – until you showed up, none of the sopranos here would have done. If someone wanted to put it on.”

“Not Emma?” Moira raises an eyebrow.

Erik snorts. “Decidedly not Emma.”

They end up going through it together, at least the first act, casting it out from the current company, Erik making notes on the parts list – “Alison and Jean, for these, and, hmmm, I suppose we’d have to give Janos _something_ to do -”

Moira packs it carefully in her satchel when they’re done, for later perusal; they’re both to dine with Charles at the townhouse, and she still has to return to her own rooms and change. They cannot, of course, make the trip together. It would invite a few too many questions.

She kisses Erik goodbye, and hurries off. Even as an actress – she can change clothes with the best of them – she’ll only just have enough time. Neither Charles or Erik cares what she wears, of course, only whether she is or isn’t wearing anything, but a trip to Charles’ house is close enough to public and she can’t be seen to look shabby.

Dinner is quiet but cheerful, and as private as dinner ever is, with servants – though Charles being Charles, Moira is quite sure they either won’t remember anything untoward or are so fond of him they wouldn’t dream of gossiping about it.

Which is a good thing, because later that evening they end up in Charles’ much, _much_ larger bed, coming together in a quick, heated encounter that starts out with clothes coming dangerously close to being torn off and migrates, once they’ve been removed intact, into Charles and Moira effectively pinning down Erik so Charles can demonstrate the finer points of sucking cock. Slowly, just in case Moira misses something. Moira would be very upset to miss anything. It’s not that shehas _no_ experience in the matter, but none with Erik.

Erik gets his revenge once they’re done with him by ruthlessly wringing Charles’ peak out of him with his long-fingered hand wrapped around Charles’ cock and mouth sucking bruises into his neck. It doesn’t take very long, because - as if Moira couldn’t tell from the way he’d been re-broadcasting the sensations heedlessly - Charles derives a _great_ deal of enjoyment from using his mouth that way. He then proceeds to finger Moira until she’s writhing and fuck her very, very slowly.

Charles likes watching, too.

“Is that a- uh, God, Erik, hmmm – side-effect of the mind-reading?” Moira gasps out, somewhere in the middle of things.

 _Quite likely_ , Charles agrees, eyes very bright, lolling casually on the bed, cock hard but untouched. He reaches out, cups her breast, runs a thumb over the nipple; Moira shudders blissfully. _Or it could just be a side-effect of the two of you. You’re extremely watchable._

“Touch yourself,” Erik suggests, not speeding up in the slightest, pushing steadily into Moira from behind. Charles smirks, and complies.

Moira wonders if it’s possible to actually expire from lust. If it is, she’s definitely going to find out.

*

Moira would like to blame the debauchery for her forgetfulness – it’s quite likely she’s going to be blaming everything on it for the foreseeable future – but it’s just common human frailty that makes her leave Erik’s opera in a pile of music on her dressing-room table. It’s Raven’s equally common curiosity – the woman is like a _cat_ , it’s ridiculous, and still hasn’t given up on her efforts to investigate Moira’s romantic affairs, more’s the pity -  that makes her pick it up.

“I’m so sorry,” Raven wails, golden-eyed with distress. “I just thought I recognised the Ghost’s handwriting, and then Jean wanted to have a look, and then Logan saw us reading it and just _snatched_ it, you know what he’s like, and then he showed it to Azazel, and I haven’t seen it since, and please don’t kill me? Charles will be extremely upset if you kill me.”

Her abject apology is more frustrating than any careless dismissal would have been; Moira can’t even scold her as she’d like, when Raven is so clearly aware of her mistake. She sighs.

“I’m not going to kill you. What on earth would I do when I need someone to impersonate me?”

Raven smirks, shifts, is Moira for a moment; shifts back, to her own blue self. They’re not private, exactly, but half the chorus and most of the ballet has seen Raven’s face by now, or a flicker of scales. And with Hank around, she’s hardly the strangest of sights. “You’ve never _asked_ me to impersonate you.”

Moira has several, dreadful thoughts; Raven laughs at her expression. “Don’t worry, mostly I was covering for your – uh – lessons.”

“I do have lessons!” Moira protests, because she _does_ , and she and Erik are professionals, and perfectly capable of acting as such until _after_ they’ve finished with music. “Must you make everything an innuendo?”

“Until you tell me what’s going on.” Raven’s eyes gleam. “But – what are we going to do, about the score?”

“It’s not you who’s going to be killed,” Moira says glumly. “Unless you could do Azazel and retrieve it from his office-?”

Raven nods, thoughtfully. “I could do that.”

But it’s a thought too late; Ororo bustles in. “Oh, Moira. Everyone’s looking for you.”

“Me?” Moira can’t think why.

Ororo shrugs. “Mr. Shaw and Mr. Azazel want to talk to you. And Raven, your brother’s here. Any idea why?”

“None.” Raven bites her lip, dons her new human face, something halfway between Branwen and the face she used to use back in the village, as a child. With any luck anyone who sees her here and knew her in England as Charles Xavier’s schoolgirl sister – anyone other than Moira, that is – will attribute the difference to a failure of memory. It’s a necessary compromise.

“And Moira, do you have any idea why the management wants to see you?” Ororo goes on.

Moira shakes her head, wordlessly. She has a very, very bad feeling about this.

 **18.**

Moira could almost think she has picked up a touch of Irene’s power, because her premonition about this meeting is exactly right. It would have been slightly more helpful, though, if her premonition had prepared her to resist the need to burst into hysterical laughter.

“Miss MacTaggert,” Shaw says gravely, when she enters the manager’s office. Azazel is there, and Logan, and Stanton, and Charles too, looking faintly bemused.

“Mr. Shaw,” she responds politely. _Charles, what’s this all about?_

 _The man is utterly obsessed with hunting down Erik and has an extremely silly plan, and I’d be much obliged if you could appear to take it seriously. Feel free to play up your upset and fear. Cry into my shoulder if you need to. They’ve only dragged me in here because the rumour mill has done its job and it is assumed that I have a stake in this as your lover. Or perhaps fiancé. Azazel seems quite certain I have honourable intentions. It’s charming._

Moira hopes her face stays expressionless – or, no, not expressionless, gently confused – through that speech, because it’s an effort.

 _I’ll do my best. Try not to say anything unless you must, though, it’s going to be hard enough keeping my face straight as it is._

She is offered a seat, which she takes. Stanton is washing his hands, clearly nervous; Azazel is impassive; Logan is slumped in his chair, clearly believing the whole thing a waste of his time. Charles smiles at her, and squeezes her hand. It’s both a picture of charming young love and meaningful in itself.

Bother it, Moira never wanted to be charming.

Shaw, on the other hand...Shaw is alight as Moira has never seen him, eager, fixated. She has a terrible suspicion as to what he’s fixated on. He leans forward, holds something out. The opera. Erik’s opera. Of _course_ it is.

“Miss MacTaggert, do you recognise this?”

Moira frowns. “I...don’t believe I do. Or, I should say, I recognise _what_ it is, but I don’t believe I’ve seen this particular score before. Although...is that...is that the _Ghost’s_ writing?”

“Indeed it is. This was found in your dressing room.” Shaw sounds portentous. Mostly it’s just silly.

Moira widens her eyes. “The Ghost was in my _dressing room_?”

Stanton nods, solemnly. “I know this must be very distressing for you, Miss MacTaggert, but it can’t be surprising. He has taken a particular interest in your career.”

Logan rolls his eyes so hard Moira’s surprised they stay in his head, but says nothing. _That’s_ a surprise.

“I, I was aware.” Moira looks down at her hands, folded neatly in her lap, then up again. “But I didn’t like to think of – he’s _killed_ someone, and I had hoped – we had all hoped, I do think – that he was gone.”

“It’s true, there have been no more of those infernal notes to the management,” Azazel agrees off-handedly. Moira knows for a _fact_ that Erik has found it much more effective to leave notes – or have eerie, from-behind-the-wall conversations with – the various secondary runners of the opera, Angel for the chorus and ballet, Azazel for the general direction, Logan for the orchestra, Hank for backstage, even Marie and her costuming and props. She’s unsurprised Stanton hasn’t seen any notes.

“But he reappears!” Shaw waves the opera for effect. “And this affords us an opportunity to ensnare our clever friend.”

“Do tell us how,” Logan drawls, with a maximum of sarcasm. Moira isn’t looking in the right direction but she’s fairly sure Charles just kicked him in the ankle, mentally or physically.

“We know how much he cares for opera.” There is a twist to Shaw’s mouth Moira doesn’t like, a cruel self-satisfaction. “So we shall put on _his_ opera. He won’t be able to stay away from his damned Box Five. We make certain our men are there, we make certain the doors are barred...”

“That does seem to be asking for trouble, as it were,” Charles comments idly. “And – wouldn’t Moira be in danger?” He looks at her, almost puppy-like. Moira finds it an effort not to kick _him_ in the ankle. “I don’t think I could bear that.”

Shaw looks like he’s going to throw up at this display of affection. It reconciles Moira to it entirely.

“I can’t say I’m happy with this,” she says. “To become – bait? His prey? Without any choice? What sort of horrors might he bring down on us?”

Shaw is practically frothing. “That’s my point precisely, my dear. We cannot have this shadow of doom hanging over us! Your name is on the libretto, you see, you must perform it. All our hopes are with you now.”

“Indeed,” Charles agrees, quietly, “Moira, how can we have a future with this – as Mr. Shaw says – hanging over us?”

It’s not Erik he refers to, of course. Moira feels – for the first time, in all this farce – a chill.

 _It’s not Erik. Of course. But this is – an opportunity, Moira._

 _We’re going to talk about this. But very well._

She bites her lip, and says in a trembling voice “Then – very well. But you must promise me you’ll be there, Charles.”

“I won’t leave your side,” he assures her, taking her hand and kissing it.

Moira is _just_ able to cover her choked laugher with a handkerchief. But it’s close.

“Apart from the bit where she has to be _on stage_ ,” Logan says pointedly.

“I’m so glad we’re agreed,” Shaw says, clapping his hands together with a broad smile. “We’ll rid the theatre of this menace once and for all!”

“Yes,” Azazel agrees blandly.

“We _must_ ,” Stanton says, lifting his chin.

“Fine, fine, just give me the goddamn score,” says Logan. “You wanna do this any time soon, we’re going to have to rehearse flat-out.”

Moira still has a very bad feeling about this, but it’s getting better.

*

They are not performing that evening, and Moira pleads off general singing rehearsals with the excuse of emotional upheaval after the meeting.

Azazel raises his eyebrows, but agrees. “We can manage without you, I’m sure. But don’t tell me you actually _meant_ everything you said in there.”

“I hope not,” Logan mutters gruffly, as he walks past. “I damn near threw up.”

Moira rolls her eyes. “Oh, yes, I am delicate and easily distressed, had you not observed my artist’s temperament? For goodness’ sake, Azazel.”

He grins, in that disturbing way of his – his scar really does not lend itself to a pleasant countenance. “Of course. As we all know, our prima donnas must be treated with care.” He sobers. “I imagine you have things to discuss with...your friend.”

Moira is unsure for a moment whether he means Charles or Erik, so she settles for a terse nod. It’s at that moment Charles appears; he has been lurking, a warm mental shadow, ever since they left the office, so it’s not unexpected.

“Shall we go, Moira?”

She smiles at him with real relief, and takes his arm. Azazel is looking at them quizzically. Oh, well.

*

“You have a plan,” Moira says as soon as she and Charles are out of earshot. They’re going to take a walk in the park, then sneak back in Erik’s alley-way entrance. “I’d appreciate knowing what it is.”

“I think our Mr. Shaw was absolutely right,” Charles says, voice deliberately light. “His plan does present a perfect opportunity for a trap.”

His meaning is precisely, horribly clear. “For Shaw, you mean.”

“Yes.”

Moira bites back all the questions like _why_ and _how can you justify that, a war between us_ and _it sounds no better than common murder_ and opens her mouth to ask-

“Shaw is responsible for a great many things,” Charles replies. “Not just what Erik told you. He...omitted a great deal. And didn’t know about the other half. Shaw is very old and _extremely_ dangerous and frankly I wanted to wash my mind when I was done with his memories, if that were possible.”

“That’s why you’re lurking up here,” Moira says, gesturing with her free hand at her head.

“Oh, I’m sorry -” Charles begins.

She shakes her head. “Don’t. I – you’re always _apologising_ , for your power. How could you not know, if I was upset about it?”

He smiles – quietly, but truly. “An...old habit. I’ll try to wean myself of it.”

“But you were saying. Shaw.”

He takes a breath. “Yes. The thing is – he’s had more than one name, in far more than one country, and there is nothing here we could have him accused of or brought to justice for. Or even in Europe; it was too long ago, and he has not aged. Erik was right, about his fascination with our kind. With mutants. He won’t stop, he won’t leave us alone. Something has to be done.”

“You have,” Moira points out, “options. Surely. You of all people. I know how much Erik wants revenge, but it’s hardly likely to bring him peace of mind – and who are we, to take justice into our own hands?”

“I doubt peace of mind has ever been Erik’s goal. He has a much more...transactional approach to the whole business. And has had twenty years to hone it.”

They are approaching the park; it’s barely a block away. The great wide green expanse of lawn makes it one of Moira’s favourite places in the city, along with Central Park, to their north.

“And your options?”

Charles sets his jaw; at the back of her mind, his unease, even anger, is clear. “Options, you call them. Let us discuss my...options. I could wipe his memory. To be safe, you understand, I’d have to clear it of everything involving the last two years, perhaps his memories of Erik as well. I probably have the skill to do it without just wiping his mind clean of _everything_. That’s an option, I suppose, too. Because you can’t tell. Even with all the memories gone, he’s quite likely to still be a danger. Maybe I could take his personality, as well. Leave a blank slate. Of all my many, _many_ options, Moira, tell me, which would you choose?”

Moira waits a long moment before answering, knowing Charles can hear the churn of her mind trying to find the right thing to say, trying anyway, because she can’t not.

“How often does that sort of thought present itself to you?”

Charles closes his eyes for a second, lashes dark on his cheeks. “More often than I would like.”

“It must,” Moira offers, “be frustrating.”

He chokes on a laugh. “What – _not_ shaping the world to my whim?”

“Yes, if you like.”

He shoots her a frank glance. “Don’t bother telling me it doesn’t disturb you.”

She doesn’t, and she can tell precisely how much it disturbs Charles, too.

“So. You’re just going to...let Erik kill him?”

Charles lets out a breath. “No. I’ve seen Shaw’s power, in his memories. Erik was quite right – he could never manage it alone, without a stroke of luck.”

“So you’ll help him.”

“Yes.”

The wide lawn is less than soothing, today; Moira looks around it, at the people strolling, the trees, the sun, the sky, and thinks what a thing it is, to have this world and deliberately take a person out of it. Aside from the not inconsiderable matters of law and of sin, it is, on its own, a thing scarcely imaginable.

And yet. She cannot – for the moment – muster any good argument against it.

“Added to which,” Charles goes on, “I have thought upon your point, of taking the law into our hands. It bears consideration. But as it is – how likely is it, do you think, that any force of law could stand against half the members of your company? Ororo’s lightning, or young Robert’s walls of ice. Or Hank’s strength, applied in rage. Yet the rule of law is what makes society. We cannot be without it.”

“So you’re saying that you will, because no-one else has? Or can? That you should...form your own society?”

Charles shakes his head. “That I can’t endorse, though I know Erik would prefer it. We are too closely tied; all of us, so far as I can tell, are the children of...of normal men and women. If more of us are born, likely most of those will be as we were, until our numbers are great enough that we reproduce on our own. And even then, unless the forces that have produced us cease to act, mutants will still have human parents, siblings. Husbands and wives. Children, maybe, if these changes revert – none of us have children that I know of, so who can say. But we must be _responsible_ for ourselves, within wider society. Alone – scattered – we will be treated as freaks or oddities.”

Moira thinks of Angel, of Angel’s mother. Of Erik. “It’s so very easy, after all, for society to turn upon the different. You have to be able to protect yourselves, should that occur.”

Charles’ mouth quirks. “You agree with Erik, there. So do I, I suppose, to a point.”

“Well, then.” They have been once round the park; Moira has little taste, suddenly, for further strolling. “You seem quite determined on the point. But that it shall be a trap is hardly a plan, in and of itself – what role do I, and the rest of the company, play? Or do we just perform?”

Charles grins. “Now, that – _that’s_ a story we need Erik for.”

*

Moira ends up being more than a little glad Charles is with her when they arrive at Erik’s; he has, in his ghostly fashion, heard about the discovery of his opera, and is more than a little furious.

“How you could be so _careless,”_ he rants outright. “I told you, you _promised_ me -”

“I was not careless!” Moira retorts, at a positively un-ladylike volume. “Raven has a terrible habit of going through my things, and it probably wouldn’t have gone any further without a run of coincidence and bad luck. If there’s something I can do to fix it, _tell me_ , but otherwise you can work out your temper frightening the ballet!”

“The ballet isn’t frightened of me anymore,” Erik grumbles. “And there isn’t anything you can do to fix it.”

“If I may -” Charles interjects. “I think this can be turned into an opportunity.”

“An opportunity?” Erik raises his eyebrows.

“Yes. If you’ll hear me out.”

“And,” Moira adds, hastily, “I was _right_. Azazel likes it. So does Logan. He wouldn’t be complaining nearly as much about the proposition of putting it on if he didn’t.”

“Putting it on.” Erik looks slightly nauseous. “This is _exactly_ why I hadn’t shown it to you, it’s not anywhere near being ready to be performed, this is going to be a disaster.”

“Erik,” Charles says deliberately, “calm yourself. Moira’s quite right. The people who actually know something about the arts in this opera house liked it. And unless you’ve somehow failed to drive off total incompetents – and I have it on the best of authority that’s never been a problem before – that means something. And you did promise to hear me out.”

Erik does. He shows only a grim satisfaction at the promise of a chance at Shaw, with a guilty look at Moira.

“I can have a feminine fainting fit about your horrible, vicious plans if you like,” Moira offers obligingly.

“I have no intention of being vicious, I just want him dead,” Erik says in flat, level tones that Moira does not like at _all_.

“But you think we can pull this off?” Charles leans forward, hands clasped together. “It does require some cooperation.”

Erik nods at Moira. “If she can pull the company together.”

Moira smiles. “For this, even as a – an upscaled prank? Oh, I can.”

Erik grins.

*

They close out _Figaro_ without any fuss. The rehearsals for the new opera, on the other hand, entail great dramatics. Janos throws half a fit about the unusual keys and difficult note changes; it ends only when Azazel inquires if he is handing in his resignation. Everyone is determined to do things _right_ , and not sure how; Erik does not help matters by leaving more notes in a week than he’s ever managed before in half a year, and _lurking_.

“You see him around,” Angel snaps at Moira, “tell him to _back off_. No-one here is trying to mess up his masterpiece, it’s not a conspiracy. It’s just not easy.”

“It’s not a conspiracy?” Moira raises an eyebrow.

Angel sighs. “You know what I meant. It’s not a conspiracy to get things wrong.”

“I doubt he thinks it is.”

“Just get him to calm down.” Angel smirks. “However you can.”

Moira curses Raven. Again. “I’m not going to honour that with a response.”

*

The planning for the _actual_ conspiracy proceeds apace, too. A great deal of it hinges on Hank, who couldn’t lurk if his life depended on it but does look a bit worrying when glanced in the shadows – if you don’t know him. Another part hinges on several of the chorus and backstage utilising their particular talents. Moira isn’t sure whether the whole thing counts as a “plan” so much as “attempt to produce maximum confusion”, but it’s what they’ve got.

The key, of course, is this: that Shaw seems absolutely determined to catch the Opera Ghost, and egotistical enough to try and take care of it himself. If he can be lured away from the stage and auditorium, the lights and music...

...well, he won’t be coming back out.

Moira isn’t sure, still, whether she thinks this is the best plan. But in the end – they could tell themselves, night and day, that they were only doing this to foil Shaw’s own plot; that he would be dealt with in some other way; that no-one would have to die.

And they’d be dealing in self-illusion. Moira spends her days creating illusions; that they are in Italy, Japan, Carthage; that she is a lady, a maid, a dancing-girl; that she is falling in love, being married, dying. She spends her nights being other people, people whose lives are lived in song.

She prefers to keep illusion out of her own life, when and where she can.

*

The morning of the day the opera is to open, Moira is in her apartment, contemplating going to the theatre early and begging Raven and the others to distract her, as they have for her other opening night nerves – when the day-maid tells her she has a lady asking to see her.

Moira cannot work out who it might be. Raven rarely registers in anyone’s mind as a _lady_ , unless she chooses to play one, and besides has been here half a dozen times. Perhaps Angel?

“Show her in,” she says.

To Moira’s extreme surprise, it is Emma Frost.

“I see you’ve finally prised yourself out of that ridiculous dormitory,” Emma says, stripping off her gloves. She looks around the parlour with a cold but not dismissive eye. “I had no idea why you stayed there so long. Couldn’t you have got Xavier to make arrangements?”

Moira’s uncertain mood descends rapidly to dislike; she isn’t anyone’s kept woman, and has never had any intention of being so. “Your assumptions are, I’m afraid, incorrect.”

Emma smiles, patronisingly. “Oh, don’t be so defensive, I’m hardly _judging_. But it wasn’t your Englishman that I wanted to talk about.”

“What, then?” Moira demands impatiently. She _should_ be offering Emma tea, or –

“Don’t bother, I’m not here to pretend we like each other,” Emma says. “No, I just wanted to deliver a message.”

Moira frowns. “What message?”

“I’m leaving,” Emma says, in bored tones. “For Europe. I have an engagement at Covent Garden, and then – well, I can’t be bothered telling you the details. In any case, your Ghost clearly doesn’t want me in his opera house, and while I _could_ deal with him...it just seems like such a terrible waste of time.”

“Oh.” Moira blinks. “It...does?”

Emma rolls her eyes. “Of course it does. The world of opera is large, and this opera house isn’t. Besides which, _someone_ has done an excellent job of shielding your mind. Not that I couldn’t break it, of course, but at the risk of leaving you a gibbering wreck, and I don’t like to do that unless someone _particularly_ deserves it.” She regards Moira with some distaste. “You’ve just been a nuisance. It doesn’t quite make the grade. And whoever did the shielding might take offence, which is, frankly, a greater concern.”

Moira feels a trickle of very real fear down her spine, but remains calm. For all the good it does, in front of a mind-reader. “I’m so gratified to hear it.”

“Very well.” Emma smiles at her. It’s almost real. “Oh, and one other thing – dear Sebastian has got _quite_ the taking, about your Ghost. I understand there are plans afoot to catch him. Tonight.”

“As I’ve been involved with them,” Moira returns, “I am aware of that.”

“Involved with them.” Emma sighs. “Sebastian never _has_ been the most intelligent of men. Too prone to the dramatic. And between you and me, in an opera house, that takes _effort_.”

Moira’s mouth twitches, quite against her will. “It does.”

“And so.” Emma pulls on her gloves again. “I’m not of a mind to remain and see who wins out from the sidelines, tonight – though if your telepath is involved, I dare say you’ll have the edge, except perhaps that – anyway, do drop by, sometime, and let me know how it played out. If you’re alive, of course. Sebastian does get a tad destructive, when pushed. Keep it in mind.”

“We’ll take tea together in London, shall we?” Moira says. “As you like. I hope you understand, Emma – I never meant to take your place.”

“But you did. _Don’t_ say it wasn’t that you disliked me – you positively reek of it. Not that I _care_ , you understand, but reading minds gives one a taste for honesty. Where it can be found.”

“Fine,” grits out Moira, “but I _absolutely_ had nothing to do with that little stunt on the opening night of _Figaro_.”

Emma narrows her eyes. “ _That_ , I’m aware of. Or the gibbering wreck scenario _would_ have been a possibility.”

“And now I must be off,” she continues. “I can’t think of anyone you should give my regards to. Well, perhaps Azazel. And Janos. They weren’t entirely hopeless.”

“Travel safely,” Moira says, because sometimes politeness is all you have left.

“Break a leg, tonight,” Emma returns, and is gone.

Something about that exchange disturbs Moira, and not the casual threats. It lurks at the back of her mind all the way to the theatre, right up until she’s having her hair and make-up done, and then –

 _I daresay you’ll have the edge_ , Emma had said, _except perhaps that –_

Except perhaps that what?

She wants to run, then to tell someone; Charles, in the audience, Erik, Angel or Raven, perhaps, even Azazel. To work out what Emma might have meant by that, and whether they are making a terrible mistake.

But the curtain is rising, and it’s time.

 **19.**

The night is as dark and stormy as anyone could like, though the opera house is too well-built and insulated for Ororo’s wind and rain to penetrate to the auditorium. (“You’re in luck,” she’d explained. “There was a storm system moving in anyway, I just had to hurry it along. There’s nothing like a good thunderstorm to set the mood for what we’re planning.”)

The house is full, and was booked out days ago; not what you’d expect, for an opera no-one has heard of and for which the composer is not named, but gossip and mystery have done their job. It worries Moira, if she must be honest; as far as she’s concerned, the fewer people around the better. Charles is certain he can deal with the audience if need be, but Moira would rather there was no need.

Everything appears to be going as usual backstage, but it’s heightened with more than opening-night tension; if you dropped a pin, half the ballet would likely scream. Moira waits in the wings, in her “peasant dress” – she _knows_ Marie knows better than that, but in opera, even beggars wear velvets, or good imitations thereof – and tries not to jump at each passing footstep.

Also in the wings – on the other side of the stage from her, fortunately, fortunately – are Shaw, and some of the policemen who have been called into the theatre. Azazel is here somewhere too, though Moira does not know where. Shaw’s eyes glittered unpleasantly, when Moira passed him backstage; he’s obviously enjoying this. Everyone parted around him, as if in respect – or as if they didn’t wish to touch him.

Even Sean is serious, as the curtain lifts. If that’s not as good as a rider on a pale horse, Moira doesn’t know what is.

Despite the tension, despite the audience – who are positively _ravenous_ for something to go wrong, perhaps another body, Moira’s not sure – they get half-way through the first act without any trouble. It’s going, against all expectations, smoothly.

Until it doesn’t.

Moira is not quite sure what panics Janos, but he stumbles, coming down the on-set stairs, and – it’s Hank, standing in the wings, out of Shaw’s line of sight but well in Janos’.

Janos’ eyes go wide, his cue hanging untaken; in the prompter’s corner, Sean is scanning the text furiously, ready to prompt him, but before he can, Janos points and positively shrieks “It’s the Ghost!”

That’s the trouble with a trained opera singer, Moira just has time to think; when they yell, they _yell_.

There are shocked gasps, from the audience, but no time to pay them any mind. The orchestra halts in a clangor of awkwardly-played strings and wind instruments blown too harshly. Everyone on the right wing of the stage – Hank included – looks over their shoulders in confusion.

Then there is a strange sound – something like wind, something like an explosion – and Azazel appears out of nowhere, grabs hold of Hank, and vanishes. It’s the smartest thing – it would be smarter still if Sean would lower the curtain, and Moira drops her basket to dash for him – but too late; something is growing between Janos’ hands, a whirlwind, and it is picking up speed.

Moira had wondered, if he – well, too late, too late.

“Ororo!” she yells instead, over the noise of the whirlwind. Ororo is breaking ranks, raising her hands, but the whirlwind is spinning out from the stage and everything is chaos. There is a flash, somewhere off to Moira’s left; she hopes desperately it’s Alison’s light-show rather than Alex going off, or, just as bad, John playing with fire.

She can’t see where the policemen have gone, or Shaw. She doesn’t know where Erik is, or Charles, out there in the auditorium. The show is _not_ going to go on, clearly. Ororo seems to have the whirlwind under control, but at least one of the arc lamps has exploded. Janos is – being thoroughly disabled by Raven, who is flickering blue.  It’s a disaster.

Only one thing for it, then. Moira picks up her skirts and _runs_.

As she goes, she hears Angel yelling behind her, “Come on, everyone! We can’t let him get away!” and smiles to herself.

At least _that’s_ going to plan.

*

She bursts into her dressing room at full tilt, goes to her knees and throws open the box under the dressing table. She hadn’t wanted to keep the weapon in here loaded, it had seemed too much of a risk, but she’s cursing and fumbling now as she loads it.

Whatever Charles’ powers or Erik’s versatility with metal, Moira has _no_ intention of going through the rest of this night unarmed.

She’s just finished when the door bangs open behind her; probably one of the girls, or –

“Miss MacTaggert,” says Shaw.

Moira goes still, and as quietly as she can, cocks the hammer. The _click_ is covered – she hopes – by her movement as she deliberately knocks the table, turning around.

“Mr. Shaw.” She doesn’t stand; her father’s old revolver is an unwieldy thing, a soldier’s side-arm rather than a lady’s toy, and she has to keep both hands on it. As it is she could break a wrist, firing it carelessly. With one hand, she might as well put it to her own head; it’d be nearly as safe. She keeps her gaze fixed on Shaw.

“What brings you here?” he asks. There are no policemen behind him, no-one at all, in fact; in the distance, Moira can just hear the yelling of the “mob”. With any luck – added to Angel’s management, an occasional appearance from Hank, Alison’s illusions, and Jean’s movement of objects, maybe the odd impersonation by Raven to spice things up – they should be able to lead people on a merry chase around the cellar for _hours_. But to no avail – Shaw is here, not there.

Moira feels very alone.

 _Charles_ , she calls. _Charles, I could use a hand. I’m in my dressing room. Hear me, hear me, Charles_.

But he can’t, she knows quite well; even his fellow mutants cannot throw their mental voices to him unless he is listening in on even the thinnest of mental threads. He can hear her from miles away when he wants, but if he isn’t listening now, she may as well scream into silence.

She hopes, just this once, he’s reverted to overprotectiveness. And where, for that matter, is Erik?

“I could ask you the same question,” she says. “You won’t find the Ghost here, if you’re looking for him. Everyone else is hunting him down.”

“Won’t I?” Shaw smirks. This is _extremely_ problematic. “I think I will. I think that when we set out to use you as bait, we weren’t trying hard enough. But your Englishman would have objected to that if I’d suggested it.”

Moira should be afraid at that, but she’s mostly indignant. She isn’t _bait_. Erik doesn’t _own_ her. Neither, for that matter, does Charles. “I’m afraid I’ll have to decline the offer. We have quite enough chaos out there, without creating any more.”

“I don’t intend to give you the opportunity.” Shaw grabs her by the arm, or tries to; Moira jumps back, stumbles, rather, on her skirts, aims – not that she needs to, at this range – and fires.

The Beaumont-Adams is a high-calibre weapon; she saw, as a child, what it could do to targets. She has some idea what it might do to human flesh. What that is remains a mystery, though, because the bullet hits Shaw and _bounces_. He seems to ripple, and then any sign of the impact is gone.

They’ve shot right past _problematic_ and back to _disastrous._

And where the _hell_ is everyone else?

Shaw actually swears. Moira does believe she’s surprised him.

Then his expression clears, and he laughs. “Weren’t expecting _that_ , were you? I should have known little Erik would have talked. He never was the sort to be turned by a pretty face, but you’ve got more than that – and Xavier, so extremely tiresome, Erik wouldn’t like him at _all_. I’m surprised he hasn’t run him off yet.”

Shaw seems quite willing to talk, so Moira lets him, backing slowly towards the rear of the room. He doesn’t even follow her – why should he? He’s between her and the door, and her only weapon cannot touch him.

“I can’t imagine what he was thinking, holing himself up in here,” Shaw continues.

How does he even know it’s Erik? Was it the dead man? Was it _Emma_? Was it something they did wrong, some slip?

“But then, he always was reclusive. Never much for the niceties of society. I imagine he must have been dreadfully dull company. I’m not surprised you preferred Xavier. He’s pretty enough.”

She’s close enough, and this can’t be put off any longer, so Moira spins on her heel, turns her face to the wall, and fires every other chamber of the revolver into her mirror.

The deafening sound has barely died down when she’s throwing down the revolver, picking up her skirts, and darting through the ruins into darkness.

She can’t fight Shaw in the light, where he knows what he’s doing, has all the advantages. So let him follow her down into the dark. Someone will have heard the noise; Hank’s hearing is exquisitely sensitive, so is Logan’s. Someone will come.

Moira runs.

 **20.**

It’s quite the stupidest thing she’s done in her life, Moira thinks, as she sprints down through the dark. Her shoes, for a wonder and a mercy, are flat-soled, and she’s not corseted; she knows every turn and dip of this passage, even in the dark. But those are all her advantages. And as she rushes downwards, she remembers, with a sinking heart, Charles’ words about the space under the opera house.

 _Something about the ground...it blocks my mind._

She’d been relying on Charles locating her, eventually; on back-up appearing. 

Shaw is unlikely to _kill_ her, down here in the dark. If he wants her as bait, or to torment Erik, he will at least wait to do so until Erik appears. But Moira is disinclined to risk anything else he has planned.

At least he seems quite convinced that Erik will be alone, which will not be the case.

She emerges onto the small beach by the lake; there is a lantern tucked in a corner beside the passage, but Moira does not dare to light it. There is no sound but the quiet lap of the lake. She debates attempting to swim, but her clothing is too heavy – _damn_ those mocked-up velvets, they’re nothing but upholstery fabric – and stripping out of it seems inadvisable. She is only a mediocre swimmer, in any case, and the noise would direct Shaw towards her as surely as a shout.

She tucks herself into the nook beside the lantern, and tries to slow her breathing. Everything is black as pitch, nothing but inky darkness. It all seems impossible, unreal; surely she is back on stage, she has hit her head, she is dreaming still and will wake to the morning of their first performance.

But the darkness does not lessen, and after a while she can hear the noises of someone getting closer.

Whoever it is stumbles out onto the small patch of earth and stone outside the passageway. Moira remembers Erik kissing her there. It seems so long ago.

It’s Shaw; she would know, on the instant, were it Charles, and the pattern of breathing is all wrong for Erik. Singing trains your lungs.

She shallows out her own breathing as much as she can, tries to time it to the steady lap of the lake. Every hair on her body is standing on end; she wishes for Charles’ power, for anyone’s, for _anything_.

“Where are you?” Shaw breathes. “I know you’re -”

He cuts off abruptly at the sound of footsteps, running.

Moira, as quickly and quietly as she can, pulls two of the pins from her hair. They’re gaudy costume jewellery, large glass stones on the ends. They’ll do.

She throws them into the lake, a high arcing throw. The   _splash_ of their landing is eerily audible, and startles Shaw into a noise. Then there’s a brutal _thud_ , the sound of one body knocking into another, and the sudden, startling crash of both into the lake.

“Moira!” Erik yells. “Moira, wherever you are, just stay there!”

For a moment she contemplates retreat up the passageway, but she won’t be able to do it silently, and there’s no _way_ she’s leaving Erik here alone. There’s frantic splashing as both men, presumably, struggle to their feet, then a blinding burst of light as Shaw releases – something – some sort of energy – it leaves purple spots against Moira’s vision before the darkness descends again, but it’s enough to show her Erik and Shaw, waist-deep in water, Erik trying to do _something_ – the movement of his hands shows that – which has no discernible effect.

Shaw just laughs. “Do you think that’s going to work any better than it did when you were a boy?”

Blackness, again. Neither man was looking towards her.

She should have tried swimming for it, but it would have been a near thing, in this stupid dress – Charles says the lake isn’t more than six feet deep at worst, but that’s more than enough to drown in – to drown in.

Shaw lets off another burst of energy, but his aim is off, again, Erik moving, stirring up the water with something so that the noise covers him. As soon as the flash dies down, Moira takes a deep breath and throws herself bodily at Shaw, not five feet away.

It’s hard to drown someone, it turns out, especially someone a good half-foot taller than you and much heavier, but Moira has the element of surprise and she puts everything into holding his head underwater. No force. No energy to gain. Just the slow seep of water into lungs.

Drowning is supposed to be a pleasant death, but Moira doesn’t much care how pleasant it is or isn’t.

There’s a pull, not from her, from _below_ ; she thinks in panic of things living in the water, but no, it must be his belt buckle, his cufflinks, every piece of metal on his body pulling him down. Erik will be able to sense both of them, from the nails in their shoes to the remaining pins in her hair; he’s not stupid.

The sense of triumph lasts for approximately five seconds, until Moira is thrown – violently and painfully – backwards onto the shore. She lands awkwardly on her arm, feels something _snap_ , her head strike the rock of the cavern’s wall. She isn’t unconscious, but it _hurts_ , and everything is blurry, the dim light showing her earth and stone, dark water and –

\- _light_?

It’s the light of a lantern, flickering, spilling out from the passageway. By it she can see – as she pushes herself up on her good arm – Shaw, standing in the water still, frozen. Water trickles down into his open eyes, and he does not blink.

Erik is there, too, bruised and with a livid redness like a burn spreading down his neck. He gapes at Shaw, waits.

 _I can’t hold him very long_ , spills a voice into Moira’s head, into Erik’s as well, she can tell by his expression. Charles. Of course it’s Charles.

Erik reaches down, pulls something out of his pocket. It glints silver in the light.

 _He put a_ thaler _on his writing desk_ , memory echoes.

Erik opens his mouth, as if there’s something he wants to say, but – what could there be, Moira wonders? It isn’t as if Shaw cares. Or maybe even knows what’s happening.

She’s never, ever going to ask Charles if Shaw knew.

The coin rises, floats, turns; then, in a flash of silver, nearly too quick to follow, spins through Shaw’s head and out the other side, falling into the lake with a neat _plop_. Shaw follows, folding up and falling as if released from something.

There’s a cry from the passageway, and Moira struggles to her feet, but before she can take a step – or Erik can wade to the shore – Charles appears, holding up his lantern, pale but otherwise unharmed, so far as Moira can tell.

She’s not going to ask how much _he_ knew, either.

His face changes when he sees them. “Dear God, Moira. Erik. Are you -”

 _Alright, alright, are you hurt_?

Moira touches her head; her hand comes away bloody. Her left arm dangles uselessly; she can’t bear to try and move it. Even the jarring motion of taking a step makes her grit her teeth.  “Yes, but not very badly.”

“I’m fine,” Erik says absently, wading up to the shore. “Nothing important.”

“You need to have that burn looked at,” Moira says without thinking, because she _is_ a doctor’s daughter, “and my arm needs to be set, and you mustn’t let me fall asleep – I might be concussed. But I don’t think either of us are in danger of expiring. We’ll cope.”

Charles’ mouth twitches. “You two would set Stoics to shame. We should – go up, don’t you think?”

“You take Moira and find that doctor who was helping the audience,” Erik instructs. “I need to dispose of – that.”

“I suppose we can hardly leave him in the lake,” Moira agrees, “but I’m not going to see the doctor until you do.”

Erik scowls at that, but Charles nods. Moira means it, about the burn. It really does look quite serious.

The lake has an inflow and an outlet both, so they climb into the boat – there’s room for the three of them, just – and Erik drags Shaw’s body by the metal on it behind them. At the outflow, he summons one of the iron bars he keeps beside the entrance to his rooms – the outflow is much closer to them than to the passage up – and folds Shaw’s body in it, thinning it out to a sheet. He’ll move slowly out to sea, never rising, never reappearing, just another body in the Hudson.

Moira thinks she should feel disgusted, or perhaps distasteful, or even horrified, somewhere, but she’s just numb and tired and in pain. She huddles up against Charles with her good side, not wanting to have to think about anything.

Erik has to concentrate on moving the boat to get them back to shore, but Charles reaches out and takes his hand. He smiles, wearily.

Moira can feel Charles in the back of her mind again.

 _I can block some of the pain, if you’d like. Just until you can have your arm set_.

She nods, unwilling to speak; the pain doesn’t go away, exactly, but it lessens to a dull throb.

The boat bumps gently up against the shore, by the passage; Erik climbs out first, and gives Moira a hand. She can’t balance properly with her arm broken. It takes that long for Moira to realise she’s soaked to the skin, and shivering. She can feel the water drying itchily on her legs, brackish.

Charles picks up the lantern.

They walk, in silence, back up into the light.

*

Moira’s dressing room is a mess of broken glass. Her revolver is still lying where she threw it, in the corner between the dressing table and the now-shattered mirror.

She brushes the glass it off with a corner of her soggy dress, picks it up.

“What do you have _that_ for?” Charles eyes it. He never did like guns very much.

“You don’t need to look at it like it’s going to bite, it’s not loaded,” Erik says with some amusement.

Moira sighs. “Protection. For all the good it did me, when Shaw followed me in here. So I shot out the mirror and ran for it. I forgot that your powers didn’t work, from here to there. Not my best thinking.”

Erik looks around the room. “Considering the odds, not bad at all.”

“What happened to our plan?” Moira asks, wry. It had been such a _good_ plan, all things considered. Start a wild hunt through the opera, come back insisting that the Ghost and Shaw must have killed each other – but one slip, and Janos’ panic, and it had all gone to chaos and ruin.

Charles shrugs. “That did, essentially.”

Erik raises an inquiring eyebrow.

“Janos, and all the rest of it,” Moira explains.

Erik nods. “It was total chaos, in the auditorium. Ororo stopped the whirlwind, but the whole blasted chandelier came down – glass everywhere, I barely stopped the thing killing anyone. Except Logan, anyway, but that barely counts, he was up and yelling about it half a minute later. Then Charles got side-tracked stopping the whole place panicking and evacuating them safely, we had to get Robert to put out half a dozen small fires, most of the cast and half the orchestra was off getting all those policemen to chase Hank in circles – by the time either of us realised you were nowhere to be found and neither was Shaw...”

“It takes me some time to unwind from touching that many minds at once,” Charles explains. “When I couldn’t find you anywhere – I knew where you had to be, but Erik took off, and I needed to make sure no-one stopped to ask _him_ who he was and what he was doing – and then there was that mess with Azazel. Frankly I’ll be surprised if half the audience remembers they were here at all, I wasn’t very precise with things.”

“Azazel?”

Charles scratches at the back of his head. “Ah. You’ll see.”

“Doctor,” Erik says firmly, and guides Moira out of the room.

*

No-one may have died – apart from Shaw, sinking now, somewhere out of sight, in the cold and the dark – but there are a number of injuries. They have set up in the ballet practice room, the largest available outside of the auditorium itself; Janos is out cold still, others nurse cuts and bruises and even a burn or two. The doctor directing proceedings is a coloured woman, to Moira’s surprise, brisk and serious.

“I was in the audience,” she explains patiently at Moira’s glance. “How long were you unconscious? Has she been coherent?” She fires off questions rapidly. “You, yes, stagehand or whatever you are, go sit down, you’ll keep.”

“She’s perfectly coherent, I don’t know how long -”

Moira interrupts Charles. “I...lost some time, I don’t remember anything after that – that wind, or whatever it was, on stage. Charles found me in my dressing room. I must have wandered back there.”

The doctor purses her lips. “Hmph. Not good, could be worse. Your pupils aren’t dilated, you might have escaped a concussion. Sit down, let me look at that arm. You and a few others will need to go to a hospital for casts, but I can splint it.”

Moira sits down meekly, lets the doctor bustle around and do her work. Everyone back here is part of the company; any injured audience members must have gone to hospitals, or their own doctors.

 _I, mmmm, convinced them of that_ , Charles tells her. _Dr. Reyes is one of ours, not that she knows it yet. She extended some kind of – shield, layer of force, over her section of the stalls. Probably saved a few people. She doesn’t know how she did, or really that she did it. Quite fascinating – I knew about the medical school in London, of course, but you don’t see that many women doctors over here._

No-one takes notice of Erik; people are glancing at him, frowning, looking away. Dressed like Sean and Hank and the other stagehands, he’s not out of place. Charles is likely helping that attitude along.

Dr. Reyes must be particularly oblivious, or steady of mind; Raven hurtles into the room and positively _hurls_ herself at Charles, blue as the day she was born, and the good doctor doesn’t even look up.

“Are you all right?” Raven babbles. “And Moira, my God, your _arm_ , what happened?” She’s latched onto Charles like a limpet. “Irene said you were probably all going to be okay and if she told me anything it’d just make it worse but I was so _worried_ , are you sure you’re all right, Charles?”

“I’m fine. Fine. Really.” Charles manages to prise her off. “Are _you_?”

“Yes, of course.” Raven wipes at her eyes. “I just – you’re such an _idiot_ , Charles.”

Erik is watching the whole thing with eyebrows raised, but Charles just smiles. “I love you too, Raven.”

Raven sniffles, pretends she didn’t, and bustles off again.

Raven is not the only sight in the room; over by some of the chorus is someone Moira has never seen, or thinks she’d never seen, tall and bright red, with a _tail_ , of all things, like some penny-dreadful picture of a devil. He turns, comes towards her; good lord, it’s Azazel. The face, even the scar, is the same; the colouring is decidedly not.

“ _There_ you are,” he grumbles. “No-one had any idea where you’d gone.”

“She was in her dressing room,” says Erik; Azazel’s head whips around, his eyes narrow.

“And you, as well,” is all he says. Erik smiles – the one with the teeth. “Me.” He holds something up, tosses it to Azazel, who catches it easily; it’s a ring, or something like. “I found that in one of the hallways. I think it’s yours.”

“ _Spaceba_ ,” Azazel says. When he slips it on, it’s like a veil falling over him; Moira realises now that his true appearance is _there_ , just...hidden, on the edges of sight. Out of mind.

“That’s _very_ impressive,” Charles says warmly. “Where on earth did you pick that up?”

Azazel’s eyes gleam. “A very long story. One for another time.”

“Huh, I bet,” comments Dr. Reyes. “I thought theatre people were mad, but all of you...”

“You look like there’s something on your mind,” Erik prompts Moira.

She hesitates, decides it’s worth it. That’s probably the laudanum Dr. Reyes just gave her, but never mind that. “I was thinking.” She glances up at Azazel. “ _Do_ tell me you’ve done Faust at least once.”

He throws back his head and laughs, full-throated. “No. Should we put it on sometime?”

“You must have been tempted.”

Azazel shakes his head. “No. Keeping all of you in line is enough work for me, without going on stage. But I appreciate the thought.”

Logan comes over. “Huh. You’re not dead. Good work.” He frowns at Erik. “Who’re _you_?”

“He works here,” Azazel says lightly. “Recovered from the chandelier?”

“You were under the chandelier?” Dr. Reyes’ head snaps up from where she’s finishing the last tie on Moira’s splint. “I haven’t examined you.”

Logan shrugs. “I got better.”

Reyes makes an unimpressed noise. “Fine, if you like. I have more than enough work here anyway.” She smooths the impromptu bandages. “There. Now have your young man – men – whoever – take you to hospital, get that set properly. This is only a rough job. Then home, and if you still haven’t thrown up or passed out again, you should sleep. Don’t do anything silly.”

“Not in my mind in the least,” Moira assures her.

They wait a few more minutes while Reyes checks Erik and pronounces him untreatable – “paint those scratches with iodine, keep an eye on that burn, it’s going to hurt but as long as it doesn’t get infected you’ll live” – and sends him on his way.

As they troop slowly out into the cold night air – it’s not even ten o’clock, Moira can’t begin to process that, it feels like it should be dawn – she turns to Erik. “How did Shaw know? Who you were? He used your name, before you appeared. He knew who you were.”

He shrugs. “I have no idea. Maybe that first man of his. You knew I’d killed him. Shaw was never that stupid.”

“Emma,” Charles says. “I think she told him. Fished it out of your head, at some point. She...dropped by, today, for a chat. Or a challenge; one of the two.” His mouth quirks. “She did also warn me that you, Moira, were pathetically naive and in love with me and it would be charitable of me not to toss you aside without _any_ warning.”

Erik snorts. “How kind of her.”

“She spoke to me, too.” Moira thinks back on it. “Maybe that was what she almost warned me of. That Shaw knew more than we thought he did.”

“Never mind.” Erik waves a hand. “She’s gone. It’s done. It’s not important.”

Not important. No.

Erik takes her good arm; Charles waves down a cab.

It’s cold, and the numbness and tiredness are still overwhelming, but deep down, Moira is warm.

 **21.**

Despite the destruction – they will be without a chandelier for the foreseeable future, for one thing – the opera re-opens three days later. The mayhem, it appears, has made going to the opera practically the most exciting thing one can do. None of the cast are badly injured enough to force their removal, though Moira alternates with her understudy, Alison, for the first two weeks. Nothing in her part requires two working arms, but the break is a clean one through the bone and aches with too much movement of the arm, even when she is careful.

“I wonder,” Charles muses, “if there’s a mutant out there somewhere with healing powers? Powers to heal _other_ people, that is; Logan is quite extraordinary but it doesn’t really benefit anyone else. Except Marie, if she borrows it.”

“You’ll have to work on a way to find them,” Moira tells him. “But I somehow doubt that’s going to happen before I’m out of this cast.”

Erik is still as bad as a nervous mother hen with the opera, but is refraining from berating anyone at length about it. (The odd one-line note of beration does appear, however, _especially_ after the night three of the ballet trip on a prop that wasn’t cleared away.)

 Shaw’s death appears to have shaken something loose in him; for as long as Moira has known him, he has been focused, determined, but it is as if he has woken up from a dream and realised that he can’t go back to it, has to learn to grapple with a world where Shaw is gone. He doesn’t take up his former bad habit of avoiding her – or Charles – but he is occasionally distant, lost in thought.

Moira cannot blame him. She wakes up from nightmares, not regularly but just often enough to make sleep uneasy, of darkness all around and being chased. If Erik and Charles are there, both or one, they will wake her, light a candle, let her huddle close until her heart stops pounding. She returns the favour for Erik, more than once, though he is tight-jawed and reluctant to admit to nightmares at all. Charles seems to sleep without qualm, woken only by their nightmares rather than his own, but Charles has greater control over his own mind – let alone anyone else’s – than Moira had imagined.

He is still weary-eyed some mornings, as if the sleep that seemed peaceful was less than restful, and grateful for a kiss good morning and light conversation over breakfast. Moira remembers his cut-off cry, when Shaw died, and muses for the hundredth time on how much he felt, or did not feel, of it – what is it to Charles, when a mind he’s touching dies? – and fails, for the hundredth time, to speak of it. If Charles wishes to, he can. Maybe one day he will. He cannot fail to know that she has thought of it.

They’ve all been spending a lot of time at his townhouse, or even Moira’s apartment. As comfortable and full of good memories as Erik’s rooms are, none of them want to be down there in the dark.

The whole affair seems to have improved Raven and Charles’ relationship beyond belief; she is far less cutting, now, accepting that Charles’ presence in New York is not some subtle attempt to lure her back to propriety and a good marriage. Charles, in turn, is far less hesitant around Raven, more certain that she is not about to run away again. Otherwise, he likely never would have worked up the courage to buy the opera; before, Raven _certainly_ would have taken that badly. Moira’s eyebrows climb when she hears the news, but Charles’ logic is – tolerable, at any rate.

“Who knows who would have bought it, otherwise?” he explains. “And it isn’t as if I had anything better to do with the money – oh, don’t look at me like that – it’s really not as easy to donate your entire fortune to good causes as common belief would have it. Besides which, the opera _is_ a good cause.”

Moira thinks that Charles quite likes having a fortune, anyway, as it does make life easier in so many small but significant ways. Who wouldn’t?

“And don’t _think_ like that, either,” he grumbles, “it’s not my _fault_.”

“I suppose not,” Moira concedes gratefully, and gives him a fond kiss. “Now go and tell Erik; he’ll be dreadfully disappointed, I do believe he was looking forward to scaring the new owner into submission.”

As for Raven -

“I think,” Raven says to Moira one afternoon, as they prepare for another performance, “the idiot thought I didn’t care about him, or, or – that I didn’t _like_ him. Can you believe that?”

“He promised not to read your mind,” Moira reminds her. “How was he supposed to know?”

“The same way the rest of us do?”

“If you had to keep your eyes closed whenever you spoke to one particular person, would it be easy to judge their moods the same way as everyone else?”

Raven sighs. “I know, I know. It’s just – it’s hard. And you have no idea how much – he used to get so angry when I slipped up, even if no-one was around. I felt like he didn’t like the person I was, just the person he wanted me to be. But he’s been – he’s been wonderful, about everything, about the theatre and Irene and me running around with my real face on half the time, and – do you know how hard it is to not be angry at someone when you’ve been practicing it for so long?”

Moira thinks about it; remembers how upset she was with Erik and Charles, not for their falling in love but for their deceptiveness about it, their lack of honesty. “Yes. But I think you’re better than – just being angry.”

“I’d like to be,” Raven says simply. “Which means I can’t have at him for buying this place, honestly, I don’t think he even realises what it looks like, but – oh well. And _you’re_ still not off the hook for letting him not seduce you, by the way. But I suppose I can live with you around.”

Moira laughs. “Then I suppose I can live with not being off the hook.” They exchange a tight hug.

They really must introduce her to Erik. Whether Raven can live with _him_ is another question entirely.

*

Moira is delayed returning home after that evening’s performance, and it’s very late by the time she opens the door and lets herself in. One lantern is still lit in the parlour, casting a dim glow across Erik and Charles, asleep in a pile on her settee. Erik is sprawled on his back, one arm hanging off the side, one clutched around Charles, who is lying mostly across his chest, snoring softly into his neck. It looks terribly uncomfortable. Moira smiles, and goes to let down her hair and change into her night-things before she wakes them.

“Mphmrmrmm,” Charles says intelligently when she kneels next to the couch and brushes a thumb across his cheek. “Moira?”

“Yes.” She leans over, kisses him hello, and Erik for good measure. Erik just mumbles a little, still asleep. “Were you waiting up?”

“Not on purpose.” Charles leans up on an elbow, which alerts Erik; he blinks awake. “A felicitous accident.”

Moira is not yet tired enough to sleep, the after-rush of performance carrying her onwards as it sometimes does. They end up taking chamomile tea together – Erik makes a dubious face at the beverage, but accepts Charles’ observation that coffee would keep Erik up, and therefore _Charles_ up – and talking quietly.

“I’ve been talking to Dr. Reyes,” Charles mentions. “She still thinks we’re all completely mad, by the by, even you – perhaps _especially_ you – and wants nothing to do with us that she doesn’t have to, though I think curiosity will bring her back. Mostly  I want her to speak with Jean. Did you know Jean wanted to go to medical school?”

“She’s talked about it, now and again,” Moira agrees. “But after her parents died – well, the chorus is a living, and it’s not just about the money, it’s who you know, as well. I don’t think she knew where to start.”

“She should go, if she can,” Erik says firmly. “The opera is all very well, and she sings well enough, but not _every_ mutant we come across is going to have dreams of the theatre. We have to be more than that.”

“I quite agree.”

“What about Hank?” Moira asks. “If anyone can do better than running the sets – not that he doesn’t do an excellent job, but I know how much he enjoys the natural sciences. I haven’t had the full story out of him, I don’t know if anyone has, but wasn’t he reading in chemistry or something at Harvard, before he ended up here?”

“He was, and his departure was not the result of any error on his part,” says Charles. Trust him to worm everyone’s life story out of them. “But – and it pains me to say this – he’d never get back in, as he is now. Their great loss, if only they realised it.”

Erik snorts. “He’d be lucky to keep himself from becoming the subject of scientific inquiry, much less carry it out – even though he looks much better now than he did before. People think so...so _pettily_.”

Moira cannot hold someone growing blue fur, gaining half a foot in height, and a full mouth of fangs to be a _petty_ change in appearance, but Erik is quite right that it does not in the least adulterate Hank’s natural brilliance.

“I’ve been discussing some things with him,” Charles adds, “he has the most fascinating ideas about the amplification of – he prefers the term ‘telepathy’, rather than mind-reading, I will allow the Greek has more dignity to it – with electromagnetic energy. Which, not incidentally, is how he thinks _your_ power operates, Erik.”

“So _Erik_ could amplify your power?”

Charles frowns. “That is a logical conclusion.”

“I can’t think how we’d do it,” Erik says. “It doesn’t sound very practical. But worth the attempt, I suppose.”

“So that’s it, for Hank?” Moira asks. “Staying in the shadows, or where he is known? Conducting research by correspondence? It doesn’t seem right.”

“It isn’t.” Erik shrugs. “If he’s so brilliant, I don’t see why he _needs_ people who would reject him out of hand.”

“Science is conducted by a community,” Charles lectures him, “not individuals, however great the contribution of some individuals may be – compare Darwin’s work with Wallace’s, if you will, they arrived at the same conclusions because they had many of the same inputs. Science moves as, as a wave, not an arrow. Hank cannot work in isolation. Although you would be surprised how active one can be through correspondence, else the formation of a world-wide community of scientists would hardly be possible.”

“Something like Azazel’s ring, I suppose.” Erik makes a face. “If he wished to hide himself.”

“You can hardly argue Azazel would have managed to do all he’s done if he kept his natural appearance,” Moira argues, “he looks like he belongs on the cover of a penny dreadful. Discretion isn’t always a sign of cowardice. One can be condemned, in the world as it is, for so many accidents of birth – sex, race, creed – Angel reminded me not so long ago that around the same time Charles and I were born, they were fighting in this country to decide whether the enslavement of people on the basis of their colour was legitimate. And then you complain that she hides the fact she has _wings_.”

Erik gives her a slow nod of acquiescence, at least to her current argument.

“I want to know how it _works_ ,” Charles grumbles. “It’s almost like magic, but he won’t talk about it, and it would be a rather appalling betrayal of trust to just _take_ the knowledge, tempting as it is. All I know is that it’s Russian.”

“Maybe it is magic,” Moira teases.

Charles makes a face worse than Erik’s. “ _Magic_ is just a term for phenomena we have not described scientifically. Ask half the city if what Irene does at her booth is _magic_ , but her description of her power makes it sound as if it conforms to the rules of probability. There must be natural laws to it, if only we could learn them.”

“It’s not as if it matters whether it’s magic or not if Hank doesn’t have access to one,” Erik adds pragmatically.”

“Ultimately,” Charles concludes, “Hank’s predicament requires the changing of society.”

“Before he dies of old age?” Erik is sceptical.

“I do believe,” Moira says slowly, “if the pair of you set your minds to it, you’ll find a way.”

Her men grin at each other, belief clear in their eyes. _They_ think they can change the world, and between them...

...well, the world will probably survive it.

Moira yawns. “But it’s a little late for that sort of thing. Time for bed.”

“Really, on a performance night?” Charles widens his eyes innocently.

“Sometimes, Charles,” Erik explains, “people _sleep_ in beds.”

“How terribly boring,” Charles sighs.

Erik and Moira ignore him in concert until they all fall asleep. (It only takes about ten minutes. Their patience is not that infinite, and it _is_ late.)  

*

Erik’s restlessness comes to the forefront, finally, one sunny Sunday afternoon at Charles’ house. He has been thinking – he explains – he has been wondering if maybe Charles and Moira shouldn’t get married after all.

This is such a patently ridiculous idea that both of them stare at him for a full minute before demanding a further explanation.

“It’s just that –“ he leans back in his chair, hands clenching and unclenching beneath the table. Moira wonders if he knows he’s doing it. “You don’t – I brought Shaw down on you both, Moira was hurt, Charles, we heard you...there’s no reason not to. You don’t _need_ me. I...the Ghost is done, it’s time for me to – find somewhere else to be. Having you is, has been – I wouldn’t give you up for the world, but I don’t think I can bring you anything good.”

Charles looks torn somewhere between bemusement and anger. Moira, for her part, has lost patience with this train of thinking entirely, in all the many, many forms it has been presented to her, over the past year. Erik is so...so... _infuriating_.

“Oh, yes,” she chirps. “What a _splendid idea_ , of course. I could retire from the opera. It’s not as if I particularly _enjoy_ it, or anything of that sort. We could move to the house at Westchester. Have lots of children. Maybe we could even name one of them after you. And then when I die tragically young of a mysterious but very tragic illness, you can lay flowers on my grave and cry a single tear."

“I – what?” Erik looks very, very confused.

"Except, really,” she continues, “ you'd just fall into Charles' lonely arms and let him comfort you. And by ‘comfort’ I mean, more likely, suck your cock."

Erik’s jaw works, but he doesn’t say anything. Charles is trying very hard to cover laughter with his hand, and failing – in any event it rings in their minds, brightly.

“This is _stupid_ , Erik,” Moira says patiently. “You don’t want to go and we don’t want you to – for any number of reasons _besides_ our personal feelings on the matter - so what on earth possessed you to make the offer?”

Erik glances from one of them to the other. “I...don’t know. I just thought – you deserved the chance.”

Moira thinks privately – well, privately from Erik, unless Charles chooses to – Moira thinks quite publically that Erik just wanted reassurance. Which she’s happy to give him, but _really_.

Charles has evidently had another thought; his face has grown panicked.

 “And you can’t _leave,_ ” he bursts out, “I don’t know anything about running an opera house!”

Erik blinks at him. “That’s what Stanton is for? And the rest of the management?”

“Stanton’s retiring,” Charles announces. “Which means we need a manager.” He smiles, devastatingly, at Erik.

“Oh, no,” Erik gets out after a few seconds.

“Oh, _yes_ ,” Moira says admiringly. “Charles, that’s _perfect_.”

“You’re already familiar with the company, and everyone does what you say as it is.” Charles ticks points off on his fingers. “They already budget in paying you, so we’d save on salary, and as far as I can tell they need to save wherever they can. You know _how_ to run an opera house. It would stop you running off.”

“I’m not going to be allowed to turn this down, am I?” Erik says glumly.

“No,” Moira and Charles chorus.

“Besides which,” Charles adds sensibly, “we’ve got that whole scheme of finding more mutants to work on. It’ll be ever so much easier if we both have official business at the opera house _anyway_.”

“If I’m going to be manager,” Erik says slowly, eyes narrowing, “I’m not having you in my office every other day. I love you dearly, Charles, but you don’t know the _first_ thing about opera.”

“Yes, I do,” Charles insists. “It involves singing.”

“He promises to harass you about the management of the place once a month at most,” Moira translates, “and only when you have to go over accounts.”

Erik groans. “Accounts.”

“You love us enough to go through the accounts, don’t you?” Moira asks sweetly, seating herself on Erik’s lap and twining her arms around his neck.

“I’m not sure,” he responds, voice dubious.

“Then I suppose we’ll just have to be persuasive,” Charles says in low tones, running a hand up Erik’s spine.

Moira wonders exactly what Charles means by _persuasive_. She has the _general_ tone of things in hand, naturally, which is why she’s wriggling a little in Erik’s lap, but a more specific outline is always useful.

 _I was thinking something like this_. Charles drops a set of very specific images into her head.

Moira can work with that.

“Am I going to _like_ being persuaded?” Erik leans back a little, but is trapped by Charles standing right behind his chair, hands lighting on his shoulders.

“I think so,” Charles smirks.

When they’re done dragging Erik off to the bedroom, removing his clothes, and taking turns riding him until he’s frantic and begging a little – which is always a victory, with Erik – he doesn’t look _persuaded_ so much as thoroughly exhausted, but since Moira is in much the same state, she’ll count it.

“You’re never going to _let_ me leave, are you,” Erik grumbles in tones of wonder, not even bothering to open his eyes.

“No,” says Charles, not bothering to open his either.

“The thing is, my dear,” Moira tells him, “if we’re yours, you’re ours too. Which means _no_.”

Erik mutters something uncomplimentary, but he’s smiling.

*

Erik is introduced to the opera as the new manager later that week, by Charles and Azazel and Logan. Charles makes some vague statements about Erik being “from Europe” and having “a great deal of experience”, and everyone looks very bored and a little critical, like they’re thinking up ways to test his patience or competence – the orchestra, in particular, are positively drawing up plans as Charles goes on (Moira mostly blames Alex and John, but Robert, the third cellist, hardly looks un-involved.) It lasts right up until Charles invites _Erik_ to say something.

“As far as I can tell you’re all mostly competent,” Erik begins, “although that business with the second row of the ballet last week was really quite unacceptable.”

There is a sudden silence, especially on the part of the ballet, who had found the Ghost’s note in their dressing room after the performance and had a collective fit. Sean, who had been responsible for the item they’d tripped on, positively goes _white_.

“But you’ve also put on some very fine opera,” Erik continues, “and history suggests that we’ll get on together. Now I know you all have better things to do than listen to speeches, go do them.”

This – extremely brief, Moira thinks he’ll have to work on his motivational speeches – speech functions as a sort of rough intelligence test for the entire company; the bright ones start clapping immediately, having accurately divined the implications, the duller ones either work it out or clap while looking around them to figure out what they’re clapping about.

Janos looks entirely befuddled. Maybe it was Raven’s blow to the head – he, unlike Moira, _had_ been concussed, and in bed the entire week following – or maybe it’s just Janos. He’d thought _Hank_ was the Ghost, after all. Like several members of the ballet who Moira is too polite to name, when God was handing out virtues to Janos, he apparently decided his over-generosity on looks would be compensated by stinginess on brains.

He does seem trainable, though, which – given that he nearly destroyed the theatre with a whirlwind – is a hopeful sign.

Ororo leans over and whispers to Moira “So _that’s_ the Ghost?”

“Of course not,” Moira whispers back. “Everyone knows the Ghost was a deformed and hideous mastermind I can’t bear to think of without shuddering. Er-Mr. Lehnsherr looks perfectly normal.”

“Normal. Hah. Whatever you say.” Jean makes a noise of disbelief, but keeps her voice low. “He’s one of – what does Mr. Xavier call it, a _mutant_ , he’s a mutant too, isn’t he?”

“You nearly called him Erik,” says Raven, unfortunately observant. “And he’s – oh, Charles, _really_?” She’s gazing critically at the pair of them, standing – oh, dear, Moira realises, they are perhaps standing a _little_ close together.

“Charles what?” Ororo asks blankly.

“Never mind,” Raven replies dryly. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

She demands to be introduced, when  the formal meeting is done – strolling up to Erik and Charles, shifting to her true face.

 “I don’t believe we’ve met properly, Mr. Lehnsherr,” Raven says, lifting her chin. “I’m Charles’ sister Raven. In the ballet.”

“You don’t look much alike,” Erik observes.

“This is my real face,” Raven tells him frankly. “I wear it when I can. I look like Charles the rest of the time. It saves on screaming mobs and so forth.”

“Naturally you do,” Charles assures her.

“Miss Xavier,” Erik says politely. “Your brother had mentioned you, as had Moira. But you’re much lovelier in person. Your real person, that is.”

Raven blinks, then breaks out into a smile, a real one, white and gleaming. “Moira didn’t say you were prone to flattery. Nor did Charles. In fact, neither of them has told me much about you at _all_ , which is very bad of them, considering how...important you clearly are. To Charles.”

Charles shuffles a little. “I...was going to mention it.”

“I’m sure we’ll have plenty of opportunities to talk,” says Erik.

Moira was right. House on fire. This is going to be – interesting.

Raven hasn’t lost her smile, but it’s transmuted into a glow of happiness; despite everything, despite Irene and her reconciliation with Charles and her friends in the opera, Moira thinks that Raven will _always_ want to hear she is beautiful, because she spent so much time believing that no-one thought she was. It’s all Erik needed to do to make her like him, Ghost and all. “Alright, Charles, I suppose you can keep him. Since Moira doesn’t seem to mind.”

Moira laughs. “Not at all, believe me.”

“I wasn’t actually planning to ask your permission, Raven,” Charles says a bit sulkily.

*

A little later, Raven corners Moira. “I don’t _believe_ you. _Both_ of them?”

Moira is not, apparently, beyond blushing. At this point it’s something of a surprise. “I believe we established my affairs were not your business.”

Raven regards her critically. “Hmm. Well, you’ll keep the rumour mill confused a good while longer. You do realise they’re...” She makes a particularly obscene gesture.

“I’ve observed it.”

Raven rolls her eyes.

“I mean that in a very literal sense,” Moira adds.

Raven actually puts her hands over her eyes. “I – didn’t need to know that, on second thought, now I have thought about it, oh, dear Lord, I might have to get Charles to make the images _go away_ , I don’t need to know anything about my brother’s romantic entanglements ever. Or yours. Or – if I may make a new suggestion: we’re just never going to talk about this again.”

Moira smirks. “That’s fine with me.”

Raven tilts her head. “And – you’re really...you’re happy. All of you. Did you know that?”

“I’ve observed it,” Moira says again, wickedly.

“Please never use that phrase again in my hearing.”

Moira comments in Raven’s presence upon things she has observed for the rest of the week.

*

In the mid-summer of that year, everyone who is anyone has left New York and the opera lies silent for a few weeks. They’re in the library at Westchester, the three of them, finally clothed and about after a lazy morning spent in one of the entirely mouse-free and seduction-appropriate bedrooms. (Charles has been making noises about trying them _all_ out, which isn’t even possible with all the guests right now. As it is, Moira is fairly sure he’s trying to manage it with her and Erik piecemeal and separately, so as not to be obvious to either of them. It’s endearing. The fact that it’s endearing is what tells Moira, perhaps more than anything else, that _hopeless_ is an adjective now applicable to them all.)

Raven and Irene are outside playing lawn tennis – one would think Irene’s blindness might handicap her, but her ability makes her the very devil to beat, though Raven can never resist trying. Out the windows now freed from the heavy, dusty drapes that had hemmed the library in all these years (and saved the books from fading), Moira can just see Sean, Angel, and Ororo in the skies; Hank has devised some sort of clothing that lets Sean use his voice to fly, and they are swooping and diving in some sort of complicated game of tag, as they can’t back in the city. Hank himself is reading a stack of tomes he took from the library earlier, basking in the sun that he never sees in the city.

Charles has another of Hank’s creations spread out on the big central table, in the form of blueprints. The sun streams down on it from the high windows, lighting columns of dust – the house has been opened up for Charles and his curious guests, but still bears the remnants of neglect.

“Hank thinks he can’t go any further without a prototype,” Charles is saying, fingers trailing over the design. “We’ll certainly need your help with that, Erik – it’s mostly metal.”

“Where to put it, though?” Erik taps Hank’s neat handwriting. “Even at his smallest suggested dimensions, it’s sizeable, and you hardly want it out in the open.”

“The cellars here are large enough, or the stables – they’re built for a full house, not seasonal occupation,” Moira says, walking over to the table. “Or...”

There’s room enough under the opera house, now that Erik has finally been persuaded to move his things into Charles’ town house (which is _also_ big enough for twenty.) Some work has dammed the lake a little and cleared more space, mostly used for things such as people like Janos or Alex practicing their more destructive talents safely. Hank has appropriated Erik’s former kitchen and living room as a makeshift laboratory.  But the space could be extended.

“That makes more sense, we’re in the city most of the year,” Charles agrees.

“Under the opera house?” Erik asks.

“Mmmm.”

“And you’ll be able to use it to find more mutants than whoever happens to wash up in New York.” Moira studies the thin blue lines, meticulously drawn and labelled, but humming with possibility. “Then what?”

“Then we go and look for them.” Charles grins happily. “If we have a more peaceful – and hopefully equally successful – season of opera, there’ll be every excuse to go on the road, even if it’s just you and a few others. And with Azazel’s help, we can go just about anywhere. Anywhere he’s been, or has a good image of. Thank heavens for photography, and postcards.”

“Other mutants...” Erik looks up and out the window, where, in the distance, Angel is just visible, rising with every beat of her wings to meet Sean, gliding on a thermal. “How many of them do you think there are?”

“You could calculate it statistically,” Moira offers. “Based on how many we know...but they’ve chosen themselves by coming to the theatre, it would hardly give you the real number. It seems like there must be a lot of you, though, with everyone we know of already.”

“And more to come, if I’m right.” Charles was _delighted_ to hear that Dr. Reyes has children, two of them, and both – he is quite certain – also mutants. Dr. Reyes still maintains they’re all mad, but hasn’t cut contact entirely. Moira wouldn’t blame her if she did, but it’s a start. And a relief, to have a doctor who can be relied on for treatment when Hank cuts himself on his machinery or Angel strains a muscle flying.

Erik waves a hand. “Calculations, suppositions. We’ll know when we get this working. When you can _look_. When we can go and find them.”

Moira puts an arm around his waist. “One would think you have enough mutants to deal with already.”

Erik kisses her forehead. “Well, I won’t have to manage these ones.”

Charles smiles at them both. “The question is, are you ready to meet mutants who _aren’t_ part of our mad world of opera?”

“Are any of us?” Moira fires back.

Erik smiles as well. “We’ll just have to find out.”


End file.
